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The Book of 
Modern British Verse 



The Book of 
Modern British Verse 

Edited by 
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE 




BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



7>^' 



^%- 



COPYRIGHT, 191 9 

BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(INCORPORATEU) 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



JAN 12 1820 



•!_ .v i 



1 



3 



TO H. P. S. 

THESE SYDNEIAN SHOWERS 
GOSSAMERY APRIL GOLDEN OCTOBER 



FOREWORD 

This little collection is intended to present to Ameri- 
can readers the character of contemporary British 
verse. The period has now definitely assumed the 
name of "Georgian." It began with John Masefield 
and has grown into the newer blossoming of Seigfried 
Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Robert Nichols. The 
late petals of the Victorian flower began to droop 
under the reign of Edward VII. They dropped to the 
ground at the first touch of the frosty truth in the sub- 
stance, and the converting concreteness in the expres- 
sion, of " The Everlasting Mercy " and " The Widow 
in the Bye Street." The new era began with an as- 
sault upon reality and a shock of symbols. And upon 
it descended the conflagration of the world. The sow- 
ing was turned to the surface by a world war. The 
re-sowing began in the trenches : the first fruits of 
which are beautiful to the eye but bitter to the taste. 
What the full harvest will be no one can say, because 
the present bad weather of social, economic, and polit- 
ical turmoil is raging over the fields of dream. 

The contemporary poets of Great Britain are much 
read and admired in America, a compliment not paid 
by Great Britain to American poets. I have edited 
this volume as a companion to the " Golden Treasury 
of Magazine Verse " to link the contemporaneous 



FOREWORD 

periods of British and American poetry. The present 
volume will serve to indicate, I trust, what the most 
recent character of British poetry is like. Points of 
difference with our own art, and they are fundamental 
in mood, may be studied. The instinct at present in 
America to appreciate good poetry from whatever 
source, will not permit these points of national and 
cultural difference to dull the enjoyment of an art 
whose nature we had begun to look upon as a little in- 
adequate to our conception and understanding of life. 
Our own poetic independence has brought us to the 
point when we can enjoy British poetry when it is most 
British. 

W. S. B. 
Arlington Heights, 
Massachusetts. 
October 2, 1919. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

^ For selections in this volume thanks are due to the fol- 
lowing publishers for permission to use the poems by the 
authors mentioned : 

The Macmillan Co. for poems by John Masefield, Wilfrid 
Wilson Gibson, Ralph Hodgson, James Stephens, and 
George Rostrevor. 

E. P. DuTTQN AND Co., for poems by Winifred M. Letts, 
Siegfried Sassoon, Evelyn Underbill and Herbert Trench. 

Henry Holt and Co., for poems by Walter de la Mare, 
Padraic Colum and Edward Thomas. 

George H. Doran Co., poems by Cicely Fox Smith and 
May Doney. 

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., poems by Robert Graves, William 
H. Davies, Hester Sainsbury, and J. C. Squire. 

Frederick A. Stokes Co., poems by Robert Nichols, Theo- 
dore Maynard and Thomas MacDonagh. 

John Lane Co., poems by Lascelles Abercrombie, Iris 
Tree and Rupert Brooke. 

Houghton Mifflin Co., for poems by John Drinkwater 
and F. S. Flint. 

Duffield and Co., for poems by Francis Ledwidge. 

Longmans, Green and Co., for poems by Eva Gore-Booth, 
Willoughby Weaving and Bernard Gilbert; and as the 
American representatives of B. H. Blackwell of Ox- 
ford, for poems by Esbert Sitwell. Sacheverell Sitwell, 
Edith Sitwell, Sherard Vines, Aldous Huxley, T. W. 
Earp, Lucy Hawkins, Elizabeth Rendall, Dorothy D. 
Sayers, Gwen Upcott and Fredegond Shove. 

G. P. Putnams' Sons, for poems by John McCrae, Charles 
Hamilton Sorley, and James C. Welsh. 



ACKx\OWLEDGMENTS 

The Four Seas Co., for poems by Seosamh MacGath- 
mhaoil (Joseph Campbell), and Richard Aldington. 

Thomas B. Mosher. for poems by Lucy Lyttelton. 

B. W. HuEBSCH, for a poem by Irene Rutherford McLeod. 

Small, Maynard and Co., for a poem by Joseph Mary 
Plunkett. 

Elkin Mathews, for poems by Gordon Bottomley. 

Burns and Gates, for a poem by Gilbert K. Chesterton. 

Martin Secker, for poems by James Elroy Flecker. 

Selwyn and Blunt, for poems by John Freeman. 

SiDGWiCK AND Jackson, for 3. pocm by W. J. Turner. 

Poetry Bookshop, London, for poems by Harold Monro. 

The Smart Set Magazine, for the poem by Lord Dunsany. 



CONTENTS 

'i. Time, You Old Gipsy Man i 

Ralph Hodgson 

2. The Star 2 

Willoughby Weaving 

3. Discovery 3 

John Freeman 

4. Music Comes 4 

John Freeman 

5. Clavichords 5 

Osbert Sitwell 

6. Who Buys Land 7 

Seosamh MacCathmhaoil 

7. Symbols . 8 

John Drinkwater 

8. So Much is Altered 8 

T. W. Earp 

9. Man ' 9 

William H. Davies 

10. A Man Dreams that He is the Creator .... 10 

Fredegond Shove 

11. Every Thing 11 

Harold Monro 

12. Children's Song 14 

Ford Madox Hueifer 

13. The Carol of the Poor Children 15 

Richard Middle ton 

14. Wishes for My Son 16 

Thomas MacDonagh 

xi 



CONTENTS 



15. The Two Children 18 

William H. Davies 

16. Quod Semper 18 

Lucy Lyttclton 

17. Catharine 20 

William H. Davies 

18. Eager Spring 21 

Gordon Bottomley 

19. A Song of Aprii 22 

Francis Ledzvid^e 

20. Spring 2z 

Hester Sainsbury 

21. Sunrise on Rydal Water 26 

John Drinkzvater 

22. The Bird at Dawn 28 

Harold Monro 

22,. The Kingfisher 29 

William H. Davies 

24. Netted Strawberries 29 

Gordon Bottomley 

25. The Wind 31 

Elisabeth Kendall 

26. In the Country 32 

William H. Davies 

27. Behind the Closed Eye 33 

Francis Ledwidge 

28. Wanderlust 34 

Gerald Gould 

29. The South Country 35 

Hi lair e Be Hoc 

30. I AM the Mountainy Singer 37 

Seosamh MacCathnihaoil 

31. The Ascetics 38 

George Rostrevor 

xii 



CONTENTS 

32. Reciprocity 39 

John Drinkzvater 

33' Magic 40 

IV. /. Turner 

34. Stone Trees 42 

John Freeman 

35' If I Should Ever by Chance 43 

Edward Thomas 

36. What Shall 1 Give? 44 

Edward Thomas 

37. If I Were to Own 45 

Edward Thomas 

38. And You, Helen 46 

Edward Thomas 

39. The Fish 47 

Rupert Brooke 

40. Mole 49 

Aldous Huxley 

41. The Bull 51 

Ralph Hodgson 

42. Bodily Beauty *. . 58 

George Rostrevor 

43. Any Lover, Any Lass " . 59 

Richard Middleton 

44. " Bid Adieu to Girlish Days " 60 

J'ames Joyce 

45. Love Came to Us 61 

James Joyce 

46. After Two Years : 61 

Richard Aldington 

47. A Song of Woman's Smiling 62 

May Doney 

48. To My Wife 64 

James C. Welsh 

xiii 



CONTENTS 

49. C. L. M 65 

John Maseiield 

50. The Mandrake's Horrid Scream 66' 

Bernard Gilbert 

51. An Old Woman of the Roads 69 

Padraic Colum 

52. Old Woman Forever Sitting 70 

Iris Tree 

53. No Wife 71 

Bernard Gilbert 

54. Marriage Song 76 

Lascelles Abercrombie 

55. The Affinity 82 

Anne Wickham 

56. The Ballad of Camden Town- 83 

James Elroy Flecker 

S7' Eve 85 

Ralph Hodgson 

58. Balkis 87 

Lascelles Abercrombie 

59. Lancelot and Guinevere 89 

Gerald Gould 

60. A Ballad of Doom 90 

Elizabeth Rendall 

61. Dust . 93 

Rupert Brooke 

62. To a Greek Marble 95 

Richard Aldington 

63. Epilogue 96 

Lascelles Abercrombie 

64. The Golden Journey to Samarkand loi 

James Elroy Flecker 

65. Arabia 104 

Walter de la Mare 

xiv 



CONTENTS 

66. Babylon 105 

Ralph Hudyson 

67. Babylon 107 

Viola Taylor 

68. The Bough of Nonsense 108 

Robert Graves 

69. A Song for Grocers 109 

Sherard Vines 

70. " PSITTACHUS EOIS ImiTATRIX ALES AB InDIS " . . Ill 

Sacheverell Sitzvell 

71. Fables 112 

Sacheverell Sitwell 

72. Check 113 

James Stephens 

73. Myself on the Merry-Go-Round 114 

Edith Sitzvell 

74. Philosophy 116 

Cicely Fox Smith 

75. Billy's Yarn 118 

Cicely Fox Smith 

76. "Ships that Pass" 119 

Cicely Fox Smith 

77. " In Prize" 122 

Cicely Fox Smith 

78. The Little Waves of Breffny 124 

Era Gore-Booth 

79. Cargoes 125 

John Mascficld 

80. Deep Water Jack 125 

Cicely Fox Smith 

81. Uxbridge Road .126 

Evelyn Underhill 

82. Sorley's Weather 128 

Robert Graves 

XV 



CONTENTS 

83. A Drover 129 

Padraic Colum 

84. Haymaking 131 

Edward Thomas 

85. There are Songs Enough 132 

Iris Tree 

86. Happy is England Now 134 

John Freeman 

87. August, 1914 135 

John Maseneld 

88. 1914 138 

Rupert Brooke 

89. The Kiss 141 

Siegfried Sassoon 

90. The Spires of Oxford 142 

Winifred M. Letts 

91. Conscripts I43 

Siegfried Sassoon 

92. Youth and Age I44 

Osbert Sitwell 

93. Before Action I45 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

94. The Iron Music 146 

Ford Madox Hueifer 

95. To the Poet Before Battle 147 

Ivor Gurney 

96. The Fear I47 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

97. The Question 148 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

98. In the Trenches •. • • • ^48 

Richard Aldington 

99. Dreamers 150 

Siegfried Sassoon 
xvi 



CONTENTS 

100. Dusk 150 

F. S. Flint 

loi. The Birds Flit Unafraid 153 

Herbert Trench 

102. A Mystic as Soldier 153 

Siegfried Sassoon 

103. Terror I54 

Richard Aldiuqton 

104. Into Battle 156 

Julian Grenfcll 

105. The Assault Heroic I57 

Robert Grai cs 

106. The Assault I5Q 

Robert Nichols 

107. To Any Dead Officer 163 

Siegfried Sassoon 

108. By the Wood 165 

Robert Nichols 

109. Songs from the Evil Wood 166 

Lord Dunsany 

no. It's a Queer Time . 170 

Robert Graves 

111. Back 171 

IVilfrid Wilson Gibson 

112. The Return 172 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

113. To AN Officer IN Regent Street 172 

Lucy Hawkins 

114. To Germany 173 

Charles Hamilton Sorley 

115. The Rainbow i73 

Leslie Coulson 

116. Discharged — Totally Disabled 175 

Irene Rutherford McLeod 

xvii 



CONTENTS 

117. To A Bull-Dog 177 

J. C. Squire 

118. When It's Over 180 

Max Plowman 

119. In Flanders Fields 182 

John McCrae 

120. The Old Houses of Flanders 182 

Ford Madox Hueffer 

121. Pic-Nic 183 

Rose Macau lay 

122. The Dying Patriot 185 

James Elroy Flecker 

123. Lepanto 187 

G. K. Chesterton 

124. I AM THE GiLLY OF ChRIST 194 

Seosamh MacCathmhaoil 

125. Regnum Caelorum Vim Patitur 195 

Evelyn Underhill 

126. Brother Fidelis 197 

Given Upcott 

127. Two Carols 199 

Evelyn Underhill 

128. Triptych 200 

Robert Nichols 

129. Simon the Cyrenean 209 

Lucy Lyttelfon 

130. Birthright 211 

John Drinkwater 

131. Harvest 211 

Eva Gore-Booth 

132. The Dark Way 212 

Joseph Mary Plunk ett 

133. The Backward Glance 214 

Evelyn Underhill 

xviii 



CONTENTS 

134. Gallows 215 

Edward Thofuas 

135. Plaint of Friendship by Death Broken .... 217 

Robert Nichols 

136. An Epitaph 220 

Walter de la Mare 

137. The Listeners 220 

Walter de la Mare 

138. The Whisperers 221 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

139. The House of the Soul: Lay 222 

Dorothy L. Sayers 

140. DiviNA Com media 232 

Eva Gore-Booth 

141. NiccoLO Machiavelli 238 

Bernard Gilbert 

142. Biography 239 

John Maseiield 

143. Nod 248 

Walter de la Mare 

144. Sonnet 249 

Fredegond Shove 

145. Kisses in the Rain 249 

D. H. Lawrence 

146. We Would See Love 251 

Charles Williams 

147. Amourette 252 

Anna Wickham 

148. The Faithful Amorist 253 

Anna Wickham 

149. The Mummer 254 

Anna Wickham 

150. The World's Miser 255 

Theodore Maynard 

151. Apocalypse 256 

Theodore Maynard 

xix 



The Book of 
Modern British Verse 



Time, You Old Gipsy Man 

TIME, you old gipsy man, 
Will you not stay. 
Put up your caravan 
Just for one day? 

All things I'll give you 
Will you be my guest, 
Bells for your jennet 
Of silver the best. 
Goldsmiths shall beat you 
A great golden ring, 
Peacocks shall bow to you. 
Little boys sing. 
Oh, and sweet girls will 
Festoon you with may, 
Time, you old gipsy. 
Why hasten away? 
Last week in Babylon, 
Last night in Rome, 
Morning, and in the crush 
Under Paul's dome ; 
Under Paul's dial 
You tighten your rein — 
Only a moment, 
And off once again ; 
Off to some city 



THE BOOK OF 

Now blind in the womb, 

Off to another 

Ere that's in the tomb. 

Time, you old gipsy man, 
Will you not stay, 

Put up your caravan 
Just for one day? 



Ralph Hodgson 



The Star 

BEAUTY had first my pride; 
But now my heart she hath, 
And all the whole world wide 

Is Beauty's path ! 
By mountain, field and flood 
I walked in hardihood; 
But now with delicate pace 
Her steps I trace. 



Once did my spirit dare 

In fond presumptuous dream 

To make her ways more fair 

That fair did seem. 
But all the world became 
Her ways elect, to shame 
With their least lovely lot 

My loftiest thought. 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Her worshipful bright fire ! 
Ah ! Whither will it lead 
My burning faint desire 

And feet that bleed? 
Far in my failing view, 
A pure and blazing gem, 
She lights on earth the New 

Jerusalem ! 

Willoughhy Weaving 



J Discovery 

BEAUTY walked over the hills and made them 
bright. 
She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains 
Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars, 
But not like stars cold, severe, terrible. 
Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped, 
Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide. 
Hers the bright light within the quick green 
Of every new leaf on the oldest tree. 
It was her swimming made the river run 
Shining as the sun; 

Her voice, escaped from winter's chill and dark, 
Singing in the incessant lark . . . 
All this was hers — yet all this had not been 
Except 'twas seen. 

It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright; 
My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins, 
The vehemence of transfiguring thought — 

3 



THE BOOK OF 

Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains — 

That made thy wonders wonderful. 

For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee, 

Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play. 

Empty of meaning and so of all delight. 

Now thou hast blessed me with a great pure bliss. 

Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth, 

And I have paid thee with my thankfulness. 

John Freeman 



Music Comes 

MUSIC comes 
Sweetly from the trembling string 
When wizard fingers sweep 
Dreamily, half asleep: 
When through remembering reeds 
Ancient airs and murmurs creep, 
Oboe oboe following. 
Flute answering clear high flute, 
Voices, voices — falling mute. 
And the jarring drums. 

At night I heard 

First a waking bird 

Out of the quiet darkness sing . . . 

Music comes 

Strangely to the brain asleep ! 

And I heard 

Soft, wizard fingers sweep 

Music from the trembling string, 



4 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And through remembering reeds 

Ancient airs and murmurs creep ; 

Oboe oboe following, 

Flute calling clear high flute, 

Voices faint, falling mute, 

And low jarring drums; 

Then all those airs 

Sweetly jangled — newly strange, 

Rich with change . . . 

Was it the wind in the reeds? 

Did the wind range 

Over the trembling string ; 

Into flute and oboe pouring 

Solemn music ; sinking, soaring 

Low to high, 

Up and down the sky? 

Was it the wind jarring 

Drowsy far-off drums? 

Strangely to the brain asleep 
Music comes. 

John Freeman 



5 Clavichords 

[To Mrs. Gordon Woodhouse] 

ITS pure and dulcet tone 
So clear and cool 
Rings out — tho' muffled by the centuries 
Passed by; 
Each note 



THE BOOK OF 

A distant sigh 

From some dead lovely throat. 

A sad cascade of sound 

Floods the dim room with faded memories 

Of beauty that has gone. 

Like the reflected rhythm in some dusk blue pool, 

Of dancing figures (long laid in the ground); — 

Like moonlit skies 

Or some far song harmonious and sublime — 

Breaking the leaden slumber of the night. 

A perfume, faint yet fair 

As of an old press'd blossom that's reborn 

Seeming to flower alone 

Within the arid wilderness of Time 

The music fills the air 

Soft as the outspread fluttering wings 

Of flower-bright butterflies 

That dive and float 

Through the sweet rose-flushed hours of summer dawn. 

The rippling sound of silver strings 

Break o'er our senses as small foaming waves 

Break over rocks, 

And into hidden caves 

Of silent waters — never to be found — 

Waters as clear and glistening as gems. 

And in this ancient pool of melodies, 
So soothing, deep. 

We search for strange lost images and diadems 
And old drowned pleasures, 
— Each one shining bright 
6 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 
And rescued from the crystal depths of sleep. 

As the far sun-kissed sails of some full-rigged boat 

Blown by a salt cool breeze 

— Laden with age-old treasures 

And rich merchandise, 

Fade into evening on the foam-flecked seas, — 

So this last glowing note 

Hovers a while, — then dies. 

Osbert Sitwell 



Who Buys Land 

WHO buys land buys many stones. 
Who buys flesh buys many bones; 
Who buys eggs buys many shells. 
Who buys love buys nothing else. 

Love is a burr upon the floor. 
Love is a thief behind the door; 
Who loves leman for her breath 
May quench his fire and cry for death ! 

Love is a bridle, love is a load. 
Love is a thorn upon the road ; 
Love is the fly that flits its hour, 
Love is the shining venom-flower. 

Love is a net, love is a snare, 
Love is a bubble blown with air; 



THE BOOK OF 

Love starts hot, and waning cold, 
Is withered in the grave's mould ! 
Seosamh MacCathmhaoil (Joseph Campbell) 



Symbols 

I SAW history in a poet's song, 
In a river reach and a gallows-hill, 
In a bridal bed, and a secret wrong, 
In a crown of thorns: in a daffodil. 

I imagined measureless time in a day, 
And starry space in a wagon-road, 
And the treasure of all good harvests lay 
In a single seed that the sower sowed. 

My garden-wind had driven and havened again 

All ships that ever had gone to sea, 

And I saw the glory of all dead men 

In the shadow that went by the side of me. 

John Drinkwater 



8 So Much is Altered 

SO much is altered; we no longer write 
As those poets did, who, in their pride and might. 
Went from their fellows and made a lonely song 
Of their own victory or defeat and wrong, 
Hewed out a great battle with the world. 
For they were titans : passion on passion hurled, 
8 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Raised them to God. Men saw them, as from far 
Eve-weary shepherds watch a distant star. 
But now we go to cities, feel the need 
To be near each other, to flow in crowds, to feed 
On their rich human presences. We have said 
That the ancient terror, loneHness, is dead. 
Soul is like soul ; the old enmity is past, 
The war of self and self. And now at last 
The poet has learned to serve ; with the rest he weaves 
The one fair pattern, and with them believes 
That life is a green tree with many whispering leaves. 

r. W. Earp 



Man 

IS AW Time running by — 
Stop, Thief, was all the cry. 
I heard a voice say, Peace ! 
Let this vain clamour cease. 
Can ye bring lightning back 
That leaves upon its track 
Men, horses, oak trees dead? 
Canst bring back Time? it said. 
There's nothing in Man's mind 
Can catch Time up behind; 
In front of that fast Thief 
There's no one — end this grief. 
Tut, what is Man ? How frail ! 
A grain, a little nail. 
The wind, a change of cloth — 
A fly can give him death. 



THE BOOK OF 

Some fishes in the sea 
Are born to outlive thee, 
And owls, and toads, and trees — 
And is Man more than these? 
I see Man's face in all 
Things, be they great or small; 
I see the face of him 
In things that fly or swim; 
One fate for all, I see — 
Whatever that may be. 
Imagination fits 
Life to a day; though its 
Length were a thousand years, 
'Twould not decrease our fears; 
What strikes men cold and dumb 
Is that Death's time must come. 

IVilliam H.^Davies 



10 A Man Dreams That He is the 
Creator 

I SAT in heaven like the sun 
Above a storm when winter was: 
I took the snowflakes one by one 

And turned their fragile shapes to glass: 
I washed the rivers blue with rain 
And made the meadows green again. 

I took the birds and touched their springs, 
Until they sang unearthly joys: 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They flew about on golden wings 

And glittered like an angel's toys: 
I filled the fields with flowers' eyes, 
As white as stars in Paradise. 

And then I looked on man and knew 
Him still intent on death — still proud; 

Whereat into a rage I flew 

And turned my body to a cloud: 

In the dark shower of my soul 

The star of earth was swallowed whole. 

Frcdegond Shove 



II Every Thing 

SINCE man has been articulate, 
Mechanical, improvidently wise, 
(Servant of Fate), 

He has not understood the little cries 
And foreign conversations of the small 
Delightful creatures that have followed him 
Not far behind; 

Has failed to hear the sympathetic call 
Of Crockery and Cutlery, those kind 
Reposeful Teraphim 
Of his domestic happiness; the Stool. 
He sat on, or the Door he entered through 
He has not thanked them, overbearing fool ! 
What is he coming to? 



II 



THE BOOK OF 

But you should listen to the talk of these. 

Honest they are, and patient they have kept, 

Served him without his Thank you or his Please 

I often heard 

The gentle Bed, a sigh between each word, 

Murmuring, before I slept. 

The Candle, as I blew it. cried aloud, 

Then bowed. 

And in a smoky argument 

Into the darkness went. 

The Kettle puffed a tentacle of breath : — 

' Pooh ! I have boiled his water, I don't know 

Why; and he always says I boil too slow. 

He never calls me " Sukie, dear," and oh, 

I wonder why I squander my desire 

-Sitting submissive on his kitchen fire.' 

Now the old Copper Basin suddenly 

Rattled and tumbled from the shelf, 

Bumping and crying: 'I can fall by myself; 

Without a woman's hand 

To patronize and coax and flatter me. 

I understand 

The lean and poise of gravitable land.' 

It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout. 

Twisted itself convulsively about, 

Rested upon the floor, and, while I stare, 

It stares and grins at me. 

The old impetuous Gas above my head 
Begins irascibly to flare and fret, 

12 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Wheezing into its epileptic jet, 
Reminding me I ought to go to bed. 

The Rafters creak; an Empty-Cupboard door 
Swings open ; now a wild Plank of the floor 
Breaks from its joist, and leaps behind my foot. 
Down from the chimney half a pound of Soot 
Tumbles, and lies, and shakes itself again. 
The Putty cracks against the window-pane. 
A piece of Paper in the basket shoves 
Another piece, and toward the bottom moves. 
My independent Pencil, while I wTite, 
Breaks at the point: the ruminating Clock 
Stirs all its body and begins to rock. 
Warning the waiting presence of the Night, 
Strikes the dead hour, and tumbles to the plain 
Ticking of ordinary work again. 

You do well to remind me, and I praise 
Your strangely individual foreign ways. 
You call me from myself to recognize 
Companionship in your unselfish eyes. 
I want your dear acquaintances, although 
I pass you arrogantly over, throw 
Your lovely sounds, and squander them along 
My busy days. I'll do you no more w^rong. 

Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat. 
You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat, 
Remain my friends: I feel, though I don't speak, 
Your touch grow kindlier from week to week. 
It well becomes our mutual happiness 

13 



THE BOOK OF 

To go toward the same end more or less. 

There is not much dissimilarity, 

Not much to choose, I know it well, in fine, 

Between the purposes of you and me. 

And your eventual Rubbish Heap, and mine. 

Harold Monro 



12 Children's Song 

SOMETIMES wind and sometimes rain, 
Then the sun comes back again ; 
Sometimes rain and sometimes snow, 
Goodness, how we'd like to know 
Why the weather alters so. 

When the weather's really good 
We go nutting in the wood; 
When it rains we stay at home, 
And then sometimes other some 
Of the neighbors' children come. 

Sometimes we have jam and meat, 
All the things we like to eat ; 
Sometimes we make do with bread 
And potatoes boiled instead. 
Once whe.i we were put to bed 
We had nowt and mother cried, 
But that was after father died. 

So, sometimes wind and sometimes rain, 
Then the sun comes back again; 
14 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Sometimes rain and sometimes snow, 
Goodness, how we'd like to know 
If things will always alter so. 

Ford Madox Hueffer 



/J The Carol of the Poor Children 

WE are the poor children, come out to see the 
sights 
On this day of all days, on this night of nights; 
The stars in merry parties are dancing in the sky, 
A fine star, a new star, is shining on high ! 

We are the poor children, our lips are frosty blue, 
We cannot sing our carol as well as rich folk do; 
Our bellies are so empty we have no singing voice, 
But this night of all nights good children must rejoice. 

We do rejoice, we do rejoice, as hard as we can try, 
A fine star, a new star, is shining in the sky ! 
And while we sing our carol, we think of the delight 
The happy kings and shepherds make in Bethlehem 
to-night. 

Are we naked, mother, and are we starving-poor — 
Oh, see what gifts the kings have brought outside the 

stable door; 
Are we cold, mother, the ass will give his hay 
To make the manger warm and keep the cruel winds 

away. 

15 



THE BOOK OF 

We are the poor children, but not so poor who sing 
Our carol with our voiceless hearts to greet the new- 
born king, 
On this night of all nights, when in the frosty sky 
A new star, a kind star, is shining on high ! 

Richard Middleton 



14 Wishes for My Son 

Born on St. Cecilia's Day, igi2 

NOW, my son, is life for you. 
And I wish you joy of it, — 
Joy of power in all you do. 
Deeper passion, better wit 
Than I had who had enough, 
Quicker life and length thereof, 
More of every gift but love. 

Love I have beyond all men, 
Love that now you share with me — 
What have I to wish you then 
But that you be good and free, 
And that God to you may give 
Grace in stronger days to live? 

For I wish you more than I 
Ever knew of glorious deed, 
Though no rapture passed me by 
That an eager heart could heed, 
Though I followed heights and sought 
Things the sequel never brought: 
16 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Wild and perilous holy things 
Flaming with a martyr's blood, 
And the joy that laughs and sings 
Where a foe must be withstood, 
Joy of headlong happy chance 
Leading on the battle dance. 

But I found no enemy, 

No man in a world of wrong, 

That Christ's word of Charity 

Did not render clean and strong — 

Who was I to judge my kind, 

Blindest groper of the blind? 

God to you may give the sight 

And the clear undoubting strength 

Wars to knit for single right, 

Freedom's war to knit at length, 

And to win, through wrath and strife, 

To the sequel of my life. 

But for you, so small and young, 

Born on Saint Cecilia's Day, 

I in more harmonious song 

Now for nearer joys should pray — 

Simple joys: the natural growth 

Of your childhood and your youth. 

Courage, innocence, and truth : 

These for you, so small and young, 
In your hand and heart and tongue. 

Thomas MacDonagh 
17 



THE BOOK OF 



i^ The Two Children 

^4 A H, little boy! I see 

jl\. You have a wooden spade. 
Into this sand you dig 

So deep — for what?" I said. 
" There's more rich gold," said he, 

" Down under where I stand, 
Than twenty elephants 

Could move across the land." 

" Ah, little girl with wool ! — 

What are you making now? " 
" Some stockings for a bird, 

To keep his legs from snow." 
And there those children are, 

So happy, small, and proud: 
The boy that digs his grave, 

The girl that knits her shroud. 

William H. Davies 



1 6 Quod Semper 

CHILD 

WHAT wind is this across the roofs so softly 
makes his way. 
That hardly makes the wires to sing, or soaring smokes 
to sway? 
i8 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

WIND 

I am a weary southern wind that blows the livelong 
day 
Over the stones of Babylon, 
Babylon, Babylon, 
The ruined walls of Babylon, all fallen in decay. 

Oh, I have blown o'er Babylon when royal was her 

state, 
When fifty men in gold and steel kept watch at every 

gate. 
When merchant-men and boys and maids thronged 
early by and late 
Under the gates of Babylon, 
Babylon, Babylon, 
The marble gates of Babylon, when Babylon was great. 

CHILD 

Good weary wind, a little v/hile pray let your course 

be stayed. 
And tell me of the talk they held and what the people 

said. 
The funny folk of Babylon before that they were dead, 
That walked abroad in Babylon, 
Babylon, Babylon, 
Before the towers of Babylon along the ground were 
laid. 

WIND 

The folk that walked in Babylon, they talked of wind 
and rain, 

19 



THE BOOK OF 

Of ladies' looks, of learned books, of merchants' loss 

and gain, 
How such-an-one loved such-a-maid that loved him 
not again 
(For maids were fair in Babylon), 
Babylon, Babylon, 
Also the poor in Babylon of hunger did complain. 

CHILD 

But this is what the people say as on their way they 

go, 
Under my window in the street, I heard them down 

below. 

WIND 

What other should men talk about five thousand years 
ago? 
For men they were in Babylon, 
Babylon, Babylon, 
That now are dust in Babylon I scatter to-and-fro. 

Lucy Lyttelton 



1/ Catharine 

WE children every morn would wait 
For Catharine, at the garden gate 
Behind school-time, her sunny hair 
Would melt the master's frown of care. 
What time his hand but threatened pain. 
Shaking aloft his awful cane ; 

20 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

So here one summer's morn we wait 

For Catharine at the garden gate. 

To Dave I say — " There's sure to be 

Some coral isle unknown at sea, 

And — if I see it first — 'tis mine! 

But I'll give it to Catharine." 

" When she grows up," says Dave to me, 

" Some ruler in a far countree, 

Where every voice but his is dumb. 

Owner of pearls, and gold, and gun, 

Will build for her a shining throne, 

Higher than his, and near his own; 

And he, who would not list before, 

Will listen to Catharine, and adore 

Her face and form ; and," Dave went on — 

When came a man there pale and wan, 

Whose face was dark and wet though kind, 

He, coming there, seemed like a wind 

Whose breath is rain, yet will not stop 

To give the parched flowers a drop: 

'* Go, children, to your school," he said, 

" And tell the master Catharine's dead." 

William H. Davies 



1 8 Eager Spring 

WHIRL, snow, on the blackbird's chatter; 
You will not hinder his song to come. 
East wind, Sleepless, you cannot scatter 
Quince-bud, almond-bud. 
Little grape-hyacinth's 

21 



THE BOOK OF 

Clustering brood, 

Nor unfurl the tips of the plum. 

No half born stalk of a lily stops; 

There is sap in the storm-torn bush ; 

And, ruffled by gusts in a snow-blurred copse, 

" Pity to wait," sings a thrush. 

Love, there are few Springs left for us; 
They go, and the count of them as they go 
Makes surer the count that is left for us. 
More than the East wind, more than the snow, 
I would put back these hours that bring 
Buds and bees and are lost; 
I would hold the night and the frost, 
To save for us one more Spring. 

Gordon Bottomlcy 



19 A Song of April 

THE censer of the eglantine was moved 
By little lane winds, and the watching faces 
Of garden flowerets, which of old she loved, 
Peep shyly outward from their silent places. 
But when the sun arose the flowers grew bolder, 
And she will be in white, I thought, and she 
Will have a cuckoo on her either shoulder. 
And woodbine twines and fragrant wings of pea. 

And I will meet her on the hills of South. 
And I will lead her to a northern water, 
My wild one, the sweet, beautiful, uncouth, 
22 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The eldest maiden of the Winter's daughter. 
And down the rainbows of her noon shall slide 
Lark music, and the little sunbeam people 
And nomad wings shall fill the river side. 
And ground winds rocking in the lily's steeple. 

Francis Lcdzvidgc 



20 Spring 

EARTH like a butterfly 
Leaps in gold 
From its chrysalis old 
And stiff and cold. 
A frail pale sky 

On the brink of dissolving in dreams 
Covers the year's new birth ; 
While a passionless sun spinning beams 
To recapture the heart of the earth — 
Half daring, half shy, 
Looking ready to die, 
Like a sigh. 

If a violent wind went by — 
Marries earth to the sky. 

The grass breaks in ripples of flowers, 

In purple and chrome. 

As a sea breaks in foam ; 

And the lilacs in fountains and showers 

Of emerald rain, fling 

Their tiny green buds on the wing — 

Just poised on the edge of the spring — 



THE BOOK OF 

To fly 

Bye and bye, 

To burst into loveliness airily fair, 

In garlands for dryads to weave in their hair, 

In a virginal dance 

With a scent to entrance 

The sweet fickle air — 

And late when the evening 

Comes subtle and blue, 

And stars are all opening 

Hearts of bright dew — 

The sun will slip easily, 

Tenderly, 

Bright. 

Out of sight. 

More silver than gold 

To behold — 

Not as in summer he dies. 

When low in the West he lies 

In the sanguine flood 

Of his own heart's blood, 

Shot by the shaft of the maiden moon. 

With regret in his eyes 

That the amazon comes too soon. 

And my little son 
Has run 
From me 

To the flowery hills, to the dappled sea; 
For somebody told him that shepherds in spring 
Taste the new green sap of the old green trees. 
And pluck a feather from the wing 
24 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Of a throstle 

While they sing, 

All together, 

In a ring, 

And toss it up into the breeze; 

And their brains 

G'o mad with the ecstasy coursing their veins, 

And they wreathe them in violets, dance them in dew, 

Till their ankles are blue. 

Through and through 

Enchantingly cold with sweet pains — 

While the sun in the clouds 

Gold-dapples the sheep. 

Till the stars in bright crowds 

Tempt the shepherds to sleep; 

Who with eyes, wild dark. 

And hair like a flame, 

Singing still like the lark. 

Cry loud on the name 

Of each his Corinna to come and be tame 

To his love, 

Like a dove; 

And their sheep 
Turn to silver — and sleep. 
And my little boy 
With his young spring joy 
Will not discover the leanness of truth; 
With the magical. 
Tragical, 

Credence of youth 

He will think the sane shepherds he meets on his way 

25 



THE BOOK OF 



Are mad to-morrow 
To his sorrow, 
Or yesterday. 



Hester Sainsbury 



21 Sunrise on Rydal Water 

COME down at dawn from windless hills 
Into the valley of the lake, 
Where yet a larger quiet fills 

The hour, and mist and water make 
With rocks and reeds and island boughs 

One silence and one element. 
Where wonder goes surely as once 
It went 

By Galilean prows. 

Moveless the water and the mist, 

Moveless the secret air above, 
Hushed, as upon some happy tryst 

The poised expectancy of love ; 
What spirit is it that adores 

What mighty presence yet unseen? 
What consummation works apace 

Between 

These rapt enchanted shores? 

Never did virgin beauty wake 

Devouter to the bridal feast 
Than moves this hour upon the lake 

In adoration to the east. 

26 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Here is the bride a god may know, 
The primal will, the young consent, 

Till surely upon the appointed mood 
Intent 

The god shall leap — and, lo, 

Over the lake's end strikes the sun — 

White, flameless fire ; some purity 
Thrilling the mist, a splendor won 

Out of the world's heart. Let there be 
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires : 

Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue; 
Where now we move with mortal care 

Among 

Immortal dews and fires. 

So the old mating goes apace, 

Wind with the sea, and blood with thought. 
Lover with lover; and the grace 

Of understanding comes unsought 
When stars into the twilight steer, 

Or thrushes build among the may. 
Or wonder moves between the hills, 

And day 

Comes up on Rydal mere. 

John Drinkwater 



27 



THE BOOK OF 



22 The Bird at Dawn 

WHAT I saw was just one eye 
In the dawn as I was going: 
A bird can carry all the sky 
In that little button glowing. 

Never in my life I went 
So deep into the firmament. 

He was standing on a tree, 

All in blossom overflowing; 

And he purposely looked hard at me, 

At first, as if to question merrily: 

"Where are you going?" 

But next some far more serious thing to say; 

I could not answer, could not look away. 

Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye: 
Little mirror of all sky ! — 
And then the after-song another tree 
Held, and sent radiating back on me. 

If no man had invented human word, 

And a bird-song had been 

The only way to utter what we mean, 

What would we men have heard, 

What understood, what seen, 

Between the trills and pauses, in between 

The singing and the silence of a bird? 

Harold Monro 
28 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



2^ The Kingfisher 

IT was the Rainbow gave thee birth, 
And left thee all her lovely hues; 
And, as her mother's name was Tears, 

So runs it in thy blood to choose 
For haunts the lonely pools, and keep 
In company with trees that weep. 

Go you and, with such glorious hues, 
Live with proud Peacocks in green parks; 

On lawns as smooth as shining glass, 
Let every feather show its mark : 

Get thee on boughs and clap thy wings 

Before the windows of proud kings. 

Nay, lovely Bird, thou art not vain ; 

Thou hast no proud, ambitious mind; 
I also love a quiet place 

That's green, away from all mankind; 
A lonely pool, and let a tree 
Sigh with her bosom over me. 

William H. Davics 



24 Netted Strawberries 

I AM a willow-wren : 
I twitter in the grass on the chimney-top; 
The apples far below will never drop 
Or turn quite bright, though when 

29 



THE BOOK OF 

The aimless wind is still 
I stand upon the big ones and I peck 
And find soft places, leaving spot and speck 
When I have munched my fill. 

Apples and plums I know 

(Plums are dark weights and full of golden rain 
That wets neck-feathers when I dip and strain, 
And stickys each plumy row). 

But past my well-kept trees 

The quick small woman in her puffy gown. 

That flutters as if its sleeves and skirts had grown 

For flying and airy ease, 

Has planted little bushes 

Of large cool leaves that cover and shade and hide 
Things redder than plums and with gold dimples pied, 
Dropping on new-cut rushes. 

At first I thought with spite 

Such heady scent was only a flower's wide cup: 
But flower-scents never made my throat close up, 
And so I stood in my flight. 

Yet over all there sways 

A web like those revealed by dawn and dew, 
But not like those that break and let me through 
Shivering the drops all ways. 

Though I alight and swing 

I never reach the things that tumble and crush, 
30 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And if I had such long large legs as a thrush 
The web would tangle and cling. 

Gordon Bottomley 



The Wind 

WHY does the wind so want to be 
Here in my little room with me? 
He's all the w^orld to blow about, 
But just because I keep him out 
He cannot be a moment still. 
But frets upon my window sill. 
And sometimes brings a noisy rain 
To help him batter at the pane. 

Upon my door he comes to knock. 
He rattles, rattles at the lock 
And lifts the latch and stirs the key — 
Then waits a moment breathlessly. 
And soon, more fiercely than before. 
He shakes my little trembling door, 
And though " Come in, come in ! " I say, 
He neither comes nor goes away. 

Barefoot across the chilly floor 
I run and open wide the door; 
He rushes in and back again 
He goes to batter door and pane, 
Pleased to have blown my candle out. 
He's all the world to blow about, 

31 



THE BOOK OF 

Why does he want so much to be 
Here in my little room with me ? 

Elizabeth Kendall 



26 In the Country 

THIS life is sweetest; in this wood 
I hear no children cry for food : 
I see no woman, white with care: 
No man, with muscles wasting here. 

No doubt it is a selfish thing 

To fly from human suffering; 

No doubt he is a selfish man, 

Who shuns poor creatures sad and wan. 

But 'tis a wretched life to face 
Hunger in almost every place ; 
Cursed with a hand that's empty, when 
The heart is full to help all men. 

Can I admire the statue great, 
When living men starve at its feet ! 
Can I admire the park's green tree, 
A roof for homeless misery ! 

When I can see few men in need, 
I then have power to help by deed. 
Nor lose my cheerfulness in pity — 
Which I must do in every city. 
32 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

For when I am in those great places, 
I see ten thousand suffering faces: 
Before me stares a wolfish eye, 
Behind me creeps a groan or sigh. 

Williatn H. Davies 



^7 Behind the Closed Eye 

I WALK the old frequented ways 
That wind around the tangled braes, 
I live again the sunny days 
Ere I the city knew. 



And scenes of old again are born, 
The woodbine lassoing the thorn. 
And drooping Ruth-like in the corn 
The poppies weep the dew. 

Above me in their hundred schools 
The magpies bend their young to rules, 
And like an apron full of jewels 
The dewy cobweb swings. 

And frisking in the stream below 
The troutlets make the circles flow, 
And the hungry crane doth watch them grow 
As a smoker does his rings. 

Above me smokes the little town, 
With its whitewashed walls and roofs of brown 

33 



THE BOOK OF 

And its octagon spire toned smoothly down 
As the holy minds within. 

And wondrous impudently sweet, 
Half of him passion, half conceit, 
The blackbird calls adown the street 
Like the piper of Hamelin. 

I hear him, and I feel the lure 
Drawing me back to the homely moor, 
I'll go and close the mountains' door 
On the city's strife and din. 

Francis Ledwidge 



28 Wanderlust 

BEYOND the East the sunrise, beyond the West 
the sea, 
And East and West the wanderlust that will not let 

me be ; 
It works in me like madness, dear, to bid me say 

good-by ! 
For the seas call and the stars call, and oh, the call 
of the sky ! 

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the 

blue hills are. 
But man can have the sun for friend, and for his guide 

a star; 

34 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And there's no end of voyaging when once the voice 

is heard. 
For the river calls and the road calls, and oh, the call 

of a bird ! 

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and 

day 
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships 

sail away ; 
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you 

why. 
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and 

the white road and the sky ! 

Gerald Gould 



The South Country 

WHEN I am living in the Midlands 
That are sodden and unkind. 

1 light my lamp in the evening: 
My work is left behind; 

And the great hills of the South Country 
Come back into my mind. 

The great hills of the South Country 

They stand along the sea ; 
And it's there walking in the high woods 

That I could wish to be, 
And the men that were boys when I was a boy 

Walking along with me. 

35 



THE BOOK OF 

The men that live in North England 

I saw them for a day: 
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, 

Their skies are fast and gray ; 
From their castle-walls a man may see 

The mountains far away. 

The men that live in West England 

They see the Severn strong, 
A-rolling on rough water brown 

Light aspen leaves along. 
They have the secret of the Rocks, 

And the oldest kind of song. 

But the men that live in the South Country 

Are the kindest and most wise. 
They get their laughter from the loud surf, 

And the faith in their happy eyes 
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring 

When over the sea she flies; 
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, 

She blesses us with surprise. 

I never get between the pines 

But I smell the Sussex air; 
Nor I never come on a belt of sand 

But my home is there. 
And along the sky the line of the Downs 

So noble and so bare. 

A lost thing could I never find, 
Nor a broken thing mend: 

36 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And I fear I shall be all alone 

When I get towards the end. 
Who will there be to comfort me 

Or who will be my friend? 

I will gather and carefully make my friends 

Of the men of the Sussex Weald, 
They watch the stars from silent folds, 

They stiffly plough the field. 
By them and the God of the South Country 

My poor soul shall be healed. 

If I ever become a rich man. 

Or if ever I grow to be old, 
I will build a house with deep thatch 

To shelter me from the cold, 
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung 

And the story of Sussex told. 

I will hold my house in the high wood 

Within a walk of the sea, 
And the men that were boys when I was a boy 

Shall sit and drink with me. 

Hilaire Belloc 



JO / Am the Mount ainy Singer 

I AM the mountainy singer — 
The voice of the peasant's dream. 
The cry of the wind on the wooded hill, 
The leap of the fish in the stream. 

37 



THE BOOK OF 

Quiet and love I sing — 
The cairn on the mountain crest, 
The cailin in her lover's arms, 
The child at its mother's breast. 

Beauty and peace I sing — 

The fire on the open hearth, 

The caill each spinning at her wheel, 

The plough in the broken earth. 

Travail and pain I sing — 
The bride on the childing bed, 
The dark man laboring at his rhymes, 
The ewe in the lambing shed. 

Sorrow and death I sing — 
The canker come on the corn, 
The fisher lost in the mountain loch, 
The cry at the mouth of morn. 

No other life I sing, 
For I am sprung of the stock 
That broke the hilly land for bread, 
And built the nest in the rock ! 
Seosamh MacCathmhaoil {Joseph Campbell) 



J I The Ascetics 

AGES long the hills have stood 
A solitary brotherhood, 
Ages long with sinews bare 
They have shouldered the keen air, 

38 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They have wrestled with the skies 
Hiddenly for a dark prize. 

Merry Spring with her wanton train 

Tiptoes, tiptoes by in vain ; 

Ye, O hills, never behold 

Her brave dust of green and gold 

Flashing by, the pride, the mirth, 

The myriad fluttering of the earth. 

This wild magic ye have lost — 
Tell me, at so bitter cost, 
What the guerdon ye have won? 

" Speech with the moon, speech with the sun ; 

Valiancy to meet unbowed 

The challenge of the thundercloud, 

And, to quicken us for fresh wars. 

Gay communion with the stars ! " 

George Rostrevor 



Reciprocity 

I DO not think that skies and meadows are 
Moral, or that the fixture of a star 
Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees 
Have wisdom in their windless silences. 
Yet these are things invested in my mood 
With constancy, and peace, and fortitude. 
That in my troubled season I can cry 
Upon the wide composure of the sky, 

39 



THE BOOK OF 

And envy fields, and wish that I might be 
As little daunted as a star or tree. 

John Drinkwater 



33 Magic 

I LOVE a still conservatory 
That's full of giant, breathless palms, 
Azaleas, clematis and vines, 

Whose quietness great Trees becalms 
Filling the air with foliage, 
A curved and dreamy statuary. 

I like to hear a cold, pure rill 

Of water trickling low, afar 
With sudden little jerks and purls 

Into a tank or stoneware jar, 
The song of a tiny sleeping bird 

Held like a shadow in its trill. 

I love the mossy quietness 

That grows upon the great stone flags, 
The dark tree-ferns, the staghorn ferns. 

The prehistoric, antlered stags 
That carven stand and stare among 

The silent, ferny wilderness. 

And are they birds or souls that flit 

Among the trees so silently? 
And are they fish or ghosts that haunt 

The still pools of the rockery? — 

40 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

For I am but a sculptured rock 
As in that magic place I sit. 

Still as a great jewel is the air 

With boughs and. leaves smooth-carved in it, 
And rocks and trees and giant ferns, 

And blooms v^ith inner radiance lit, 
And naked water like a nymph 

That dances, tireless, slim and bare. 

I watch a white Nyanza float 

Upon a green, untroubled pool, 
A fairyland Ophelia, she 

Has cast herself in water cool, 
And lies while fairy cymbals ring, 

Drowned in her fairy castle moat. 

The goldfish sing a winding song 

Below her pale and waxen face. 
The water-nymph is dancing by. 

Lifting smooth arms with mournful grace, 
A stainless white dream she floats on 

While fairies beat a fairy gong. 

Silent the Cattleyas blaze 

And thin red orchid shapes of Death 
Peer savagely with twisted lips 

Sucking an eerie, phantom breath 
With that bright, spotted, fever'd lust 

That watches lonely travellers craze. 

41 



THE BOOK OF 

Gigantic, mauve and hairy leaves 

Hang like obliterated faces 
Full of dim unattained expression, 

Such as haunts virgin forest places 
When Silence leaps among the trees 

And the echoing heart deceives. 

IV. J. Turner 



34 Stone Trees 

LAST night a sword-light in the sky 
Flashed a swift terror on the dark. 
In that sharp light the fields did lie 
Naked and stone-like ; each tree stood 
Like a tranced woman, bound and stark. 

Far off the wood 
With darkness ridged the riven dark. 

And cows astonied stared with fear, 
And sheep crept to the knees of cows, 
And conies to their burrows slid. 
And rooks were still in rigid boughs, 
And all things else were still or hid. 

From all the wood 
Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear. 

In that cold trance the earth was held 
It seemed, an age, or time was nought. 
Sure never from that stone-like field 
Sprang golden corn, nor from those chill 
42 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Grey granite trees was music wrought. 

In all the wood 
Even the tall poplar hung stone still. 

It seemed an age, or time was none ... 
Slowly the earth heaved out of sleep 
'And shivered, and the trees of stone 
Bent and sighed in the gusty wind, 
And rain swept as birds flocking sweep. 

Far off the wood 
Rolled the slow thunders on the wind. 

From all the wood came no brave bird, 

No 3ong broke through the close-fall'n 'night, 

Nor any sound from cowering herd: 

Only a dog's long lonely howl 

When from the window poured pale light. 

And from the wood 
The hoot came ghostly of the owl. 

John Freeman 



jj If I Should Ever by Chance 

IF I should ever by chance grow rich 
I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, 
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, 
And let them all to my elder daughter. 
The rent I shall ask of her will be only 
Each year's first violets, white and lonely, 
The first primroses and orchises — 
She must find them before I do, that is. 

43 



THE BOOK OF 

But if she finds a blossom on furze 
Without rent they shall all for ever be hers, 
Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, 
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, — 
I shall give them all to my elder daughter. 

Edward Thomas 



36 What Shall I Give? 

WHAT shall I give my daughter the younger 
More than will keep her from cold and hunger? 
I shall not give her anything. 
If she shared South Weald and Havering, 
Their acres, the two brooks running between 
Paine's Brook and Weald Brook, 
With peewit, woodpecker, swan, and rook, 
She would be no richer than the queen 
Who once on a time sat in Havering Bower 
Alone, with the shadows, pleasure and power. 
She could do no more with Samarcand, 
Or the mountains of a mountain land. 
And its far white house above cottages, 
Like Venus above the Pleiades. 
Her small hands I would not cumber 
With so many acres and their lumber, 
But leave her Steep and her own world 
And her spectacled self with hair uncurled, 
Wanting a thousand little things 
That time without contentment brings. 

Edward Thomas 
44 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



jp7 If I Were to Own 



I 



F I were to own this countryside 
_ As far as a man in a day could ride, 
And the Tyes were mine for giving or letting,— 
Wingle Tye and Margaretting 
Tye, and Skreens, Gooshays, and Cockerells, 
Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, and Pickerells, 
Martins, Lambkins, and Lillyputs, 
Their copses, ponds, roads, and ruts, 
Fields where plough-horses steam and plovers 
Fling and whimper, hedges that lovers 
Love, and orchards, shrubberies, walls 
Where the sun untroubled by north wind falls, 
And single trees where the thrush sings well 
His proverbs untranslatable, 
I would give them all to my son 
If he would let me any one 
For a song, a blackbird's song, at dawn. 
He would have no more, till on my lawn 
Never a one was left, because I 
Had shot them to put them into a pie,~ 
His Essex blackbirds, every one. 
And I was left old and alone. 

Then unless I could pay, for rent, a song 
As sweet as a blackbird's, and as long — 
No more — he should have the house, not I: 
Margaretting or Wingle Tye, 

Or it might be Skreens, Gooshays, or Cockerells, 

45 



THE BOOK OF 

Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, or Pickerells, 

Martins, Lambkins, or Lillyputs, 

Should be his till the cart tracks had no ruts. 

Edward Thomas 



S8 And You, Helen 

AND you, Helen, what should I give you? 
So many things I would give you 
Had I an infinite great store 
Offered me and I stood before 
To choose. I would give you youth, 
All kinds of loveliness and truth, 
A clear eye as good as mine, 
Lands, waters, flowers, wine. 
As many children as your heart 
Might wish for, a far better art 
Than mine can be, all you have lost 
Upon the travelling waters tossed 
Or given to me. HI could choose 
Freely in that great treasure-house 
Anything from any shelf. 
I would give you back yourself. 
And power to discriminate 
What you want and want it not too late. 
Many fair days free from care 
And heart to enjoy both foul and fair, 
And myself, too, if I could find 
Where it lay hidden and it proved kind. 

Edward Thomas 

46 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



3P The Fish 

IN a cool curving world he lies 
And ripples with dark ecstasies. 
' The kind luxurious lapse and steal 
Shapes all his universe to feel 
And know and be; the clinging stream 
Closes his memory, glooms his dream, 
Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides 
Superb on unreturning tides. 
Those silent waters weave for him 
A fluctuant mutable world and dim, 
Where wavering masses bulge and gape 
Mysterious, and shape to shape 
Dies momently through whorl and hollow, 
And form and line and solid follow 
Solid and line and form to dream 
Fantastic down the eternal stream; 
An obscure world, a shifting world. 
Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled, 
Or serpentine, or driving arrows, 
Or serene sliding, or March narrows. 
There slipping wave and shore are one. 
And weed and mud. No ray of sun. 
But glow to glow fades down the deep 
(As dream to unknown dream in sleep) ; 
Shaken translucency illumes 
The hyaline of drifting glooms; 
The strange soft-handed depth subdues 
Drowned colour there, but black to hues, 

47 



THE BOOK OF 

As death to living, decomposes — 
Red darkness of the heart of roses. 
Blue brilliant from dead starless skies, 
And gold that lies behind the eyes, 
The unknown unnameable sightless white 
That is the essential flame of night, 
Lusterless purple, hooded green. 
The myriad hues that lie between 
Darkness and darkness ! . . . 

And all's one, 
Gentle, embracing, quiet, dun. 
The world he rests in, world he knows. 
Perpetual curving. Only — grows 
And eddy in that ordered falling 
A knowledge from the gloom, a calling 
Weed in the wave, gleam in the mud — 
The dark fire leaps along his blood; 
Dateless and deathless, blind and still, 
The intricate impulse works its will ; 
His woven world drops back ; and he. 
Sans providence, sans memory, 
Unconscious and directly driven 
Fades to some dank sufficient heaven. 

O world of lips, O world of laughter, 

Where hope is fleet and thought flies after, 

Of lights in the clear night, of cries 

That drift along the wave and rise 

Thin to the glittering stars above. 

You know the hands, the eyes of love ! 

48 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The strife of limbs, the sightless clinging, 
The infinite distance, and the singing 
Blown by the wind, a flame of sound, 
The gleam, the flowers, and vast around 
The horizon, and the heights above — 
You know the sigh, the song of love ! 

But there the night is close, and there 
Darkness is cold and strange and bare ; 
And the secret deeps are whisperless; 
And rhythm is all deliciousness ; 
And joy is in the throbbing tide. 
Whose intricate fingers treat and glide 
In felt bewildering harmonies 
Of trembling touch; and music is 
The exquisite knocking of the blood. 
Space is no more, under the mud; 
His bliss is older than the sun. 
Silent and straight the waters run. 
The lights, the cries, the willows dim. 
And the dark tide are one with him. 

Rupert Brooke 



40 Mole 

TUNNELLED in solid blackness creeps, 
The old mole-soul and wakes or sleeps, 
He knows not which, but tunnels on 
Through ages of oblivion. 
Until at last the long constraint 

49 



THE BOOK OF 

Of each handwall is lost and faint; 
Comes daylight creeping from afar ; 
And mole-work grows crepuscular. 
Tunnel meets air and bursts ; mole sees 
Men hugely walking ... or are they trees? 
And far horizons smoking blue 
And wandering clouds for ever new, 
Green hills, like lighted lamps aglow 
Or quenching 'neath the cloud-shadow. 
Quenching and blazing turn by turn 
Spring's great green signals fitfully burn. 
Mole travels on, but finds the steering 
A harder task of pioneering 
Than when he thridded through the strait, 
Blind catacombs that ancient fate 
Had carved for him. Stupid and dumb 
And blind and touchless he had come 
A way without a turn ; but here 
Under the sky the passenger 
Chooses his own best way, and mole 
Distracted wanders; yet his hole 
Regrets not much wherein he crept 
But runs, a joyous nympholept. 
This way and that, by all made mad: 
River nymph and Oread, 
Ocean's daughters, and Lorelei 
Combing the silken mystery. 
The glaucous gold of her rivery tresses . . . 
Each haunts the traveller, each possesses 
The drunken wavering soul awhile, 
Then with a phantom's cock-crow smile 
Mocks craving with sheer vanishment. 
50 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Mole-eyes grow hawk's ; knowledge is lent 

In grudging driblets that pay high 

Unconscionable usury 

To relenting life. Mole learns 

To travel more secure; the turns 

Of his long way less puzzling seem 

And all those magic forms that gleam 

In airy invitation cheat 

Less often than they did of old. 

The earth slopes upward, fold on fold 

Of quiet hills that meet the gold 

Serenity of western skies. 

Over the world's edge with clear eyes 

Our mole transcendent sees his way 

Tunnelled in light. He must obey 

Necessity again and thrid 

Close catacombs as erst he did, 

Fate's tunnellings himself must bore 

Through the sunset's inmost core. 

The guiding walls to each hand shine 

Luminous and crystalline ; 

And mole shall tunnel on and on 

Till night let fall oblivion. 

Aid us L. Huxley 



41 The Bull 

SEE an unhappy bull, 
Sick in soul and body both, 
Slouching in the undergrowth 



THE BOOK OF 

Of the forest beautiful, 
Banished from the herd he led, 
Bulls and cows a thousand head 

Cranes and gaudy parrots go 

Up and down the burning sky; 

Tree-top cats purr drowsily 

In the dim-day green below; 

And troops of monkeys, nutting, some, 

All disputing, go and come; 

And things abominable sit 
Picking offal buck or swine, 
On the mess and over it 
Burnished flies and beetles shine 
And spiders big as bladders lie 
Under hemlocks ten foot high; 

And a dotted serpent curled 
Round and round and round a tree. 
Yellowing its greenery. 
Keeps a watch on all the world, 
All the world and this old bull 
In the forest beautiful. 

Bravely by his fall he came: 
One he led, a bull of blood 
Newly come to lustihood, 
Fought and put his prince to shame 
Snuffed and pawed the prostrate head 
Tameless even while it bled. 
52 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

There they left him, every one, 
Left him there without a lick, 
Left him for the birds to pick, 
Left him there for carrion, 
Vilely from their bosom cast 
Wisdom, worth and love at last. 

When the lion left his lair 

And roared his beauty through the hills, 

And the vultures pecked their quills 

And flew into the middle air. 

Then this prince no more to reign 

Came to life and lived again. 

He snuffed the herd in far retreat, 
He saw the blood upon the ground, 
And snuffed the burning airs around 
Still with beevish odours sweet. 
While the blood ran down his head 
And his mouth ran slaver red. 

Pity him, this fallen chief, 

All his splendour, all his strength 

All his body's breadth and length 

Dwindled down with shame and grief, 

Half the bull he was before, 

Bones and leather, nothing more. 

See him standing dewlap-deep 
In the rushes at the lake. 
Surly, stupid, half asleep. 
Waiting for his heart to break 



53 



THE BOOK OF 

And the birds to join the flies 
Feasting at his bloodshot eyes. — 

Standing with his head hung down 
In a stupor, dreaming tilings: 
Green savannas, jungles brown. 
Battlefields and bellowings, 
Bulls undone and lions dead 
And vultures flapping overhead. 

Dreaming things: of days he spent 
With his mother gaunt and lean 
In the valley warm and green, 
Full of baby wonderment, 
Blinking out of silly eyes 
At a hundred mysteries; 

Dreaming over once again 
How he wandered with a throng 
Of bulls and cows a thousand strong, 
Wandered on from plain to ])lain. 
Up the hill and down the dale, 
Always at his mother's tail ; 

How he lagged behind the herd, 
Lagged and tottered, weak of limb, 
And she turned and ran to him, 
Blaring at the loathly bird 
Stationed always in the skies 
Waiting for the flesh that dies. 



54 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Dreaming maybe of a day 
When her drained and drying paps 
Turned him to the sweets and saps. 
Richer fountains by the way, 
And she left the bull she bore 
And he looked to her no more; 

And his little frame grew stout, 
And his little legs grew strong 
And the way was not so long; 
And his little horns came out. 
And he played at butting trees 
And boulder-stones and tortoises. 

Joined a game of knobby skulls 
With the youngsters of his year, 
All the other little bulls. 
Learning both to bruise and bear, 
Learning how to stand a shock 
Like a little bull of rock. 

Dreaming of a day less dim, 
Dreaming of a time less far, 
When the faint but certain star 
Of destiny burned clear for him, 
And a fierce and wild unrest 
Broke the quiet of his breast, 

And the gristles of his youth 
Hardened in his comely pow, 
And he came to fighting growth, 
Beat his bull and won his cow, 



■55 



THE BOOK OF 

And flew his tail and trampled off 
Passed the tallest, vain enough, 

And curved about in splendour full 
And curved again and snuffed the airs 
As who should say Come out who dares ! 
And all beheld a bull, a Bull, 
And knew that here was surely one 
That backed for no bull, fearing none. 

And the leader of the herd 
Looked and saw, and beat the ground, 
And shook the forest with his sotmd, 
Bellowed at the loathly bird 
Stationed always in the skies 
Waiting for the flesh that dies. 

Dreaming, this old bull forlorn, 
Surely dreaming of the hour 
When he came to sultan power, 
And they owned him master-horn, 
Chief est bull of all among 
Bulls and cows a thousand strong; 

And in all the tramping herd 
Not a bull that barred his way, 
Not a cow that said him nay. 
Not a bull or cow that erred 
In the furnace of his look. 
Dared a second, worse rebuke; 

56 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Not in all the forest wide, 
Jungle, thicket, pasture, fen, 
Not another dared him then, 
Dared him and again defied; 
Not a sovereign buck or boar 
Came a second time for more; 

Not a serpent that survived 
Once the terrors of his hoof 
Risked a second time reproof, 
Came a second time and lived, 
Not a serpent in its skin 
Came again for discipline; 

Not a leopard bright as flame, 
Flashing fingerhooks of steel. 
That a wooden tree might feel, 
Met his fury once and came 
For a second reprimand, 
Not a leopard in the land; 

Not a lion of them all. 
Not a lion of the hills, 
Hero of a thousand kills, 
Dared a second fight and fall. 
Dared that ram terrific twice, 
Paid a second time the price. . . . 

Pity him, this dupe of dream, 
Leader of the herd again 
Only in his daft^ld brain. 
Once again the bull supreme 



57 



THE BOOK OF 

And bull enough to bear the part 
Only in his tameless heart. 

Pity him that he must wake ; 
Even now the swarm of flies 
Blackening his bloodshot eyes 
Bursts and blusters round the lake, 
Scattered from the feast half-fed, 
By great shadows overhead. 

And the dreamer turns away 
From his visionary herds 
And his splendid yesterday. 
Turns to meet the loathly birds 
Flocking round him from the skies. 
Waiting for the flesh that dies. 

Ralph Hodgson 



42 Bodily Beauty 

HER curving bosom images 
A tender-folded thought 
Whose grace, too exquisite for speech, 
Was in her body wrought. 

The shining vale between her breasts 

Is like a quiet joy, 
Such as no malison ean harm 

Xor anv shade annov. 

58 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Yea, all her bodily beauty is 

A subtle-fashioned scroll, 
Where God has written visibly 

Brave hintings of her soul. 

George Rostrevor 



Any Lover, Any Lass 

WHY are her eyes so bright, so bright, 
. Why do her lips control 
The kisses of a summer night, 
When I would love her soul ? 

God set her brave eyes wide apart 

And painted them with fire; 
They stir the ashes of my heart 

To embers of desire. 

Her lips so tenderly are wrought 

In so divine a shape 
That I am servant to my thought 

And can nowise escape. 

Her body is a flower, her hair 

About her neck doth play ; 
I find her colors everywhere. 

They are the pride of day. 

Her little hands are soft, and when 
I see her fingers move 

59 



THE BOOK OF 

I know in very truth that men 
Have died for less than love. 

Ah, dear, live, lovely thing ! my eyes 

Have sought her like a prayer; 
It is my better self that cries, 

" Would she were not so fair ! " 

Would I might forfeit ecstasy 

And find a calmer place, 
Where I might undesirous see 

Her too desired face. 

Nor feel her eyes so bright, so bright. 

Nor hear her lips unroll 
Dream after dream the lifelong night, 

When I would love her soul. 

Richard Middleton 



44 '' Bid Adieu to Girlish Days " 

BID adieu, adieu, adieu. 
Bid adieu to girlish days, 
Happy Love is come to woo 

Thee and woo thy girlish ways — 
The zone that doth become thee fair, 
The snood upon thy yellow hair. 

When thou hast heard his name upon 
The bugles of the cherubim, 
60 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Begin thou softly to unzone 

Thy girHsh bosom unto him. 
And softly to undo the snood 
That is the sign of maidenhood. 

James Joyce 



45 Love Came to Us 

LOVE came to us in time gone by 
When one at twilight shyly played 
And one in fear was standing nigh 
For Love at first is all afraid. 

We were grave lovers. Love is past. 
That had his sweet hours many a one ; 
Welcome to us now at the last 
The ways that we shall go upon. 

James Joyce 



46 After Tzvo Years 

SHE is all so slight 
And tender and white 
As a May morning. 
She walks without hood 
At dusk. It is good 
To hear her sing. 

It is God's will 

That I shall love her still 

61 



THE BOOK OF 

As He loves Mary. 
And night and day 
I will go forth to pray 

That she love me. 

She is as gold 

Lovely, and far more cold. 

Do thou pray with mc. 
For if I win grace 
To kiss twice her face 

God has done well to me. 

Richard Aldington 



4/ A Song of Woman s Smiling 

I HAVE the freedom of my mouth 
As never yet till now; 
Being grey-haired. I may be the South 

Of womanhood's warm brow 
Above a smiling-out that beams 
(^n all my world from deepening dreams. 

My head is all a-blossomy 

With snows of coming fruit ; 

My heart is like an orchard tree 
A-bud with growth's pursuit : 

I in strange places to strange eyes 

May verily smile angel wise. 

Yea, I may be to men a grace 
Of what in me is bright, 
62 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

By the clear-shining of my face, 

In meekest wisdom's right ; 
Because in me there is no maid, 
Nor minx, of whom to be afraid. 

I do not seek them ; no sweet veil 

Of girlhood's modesty 
Is fine as this through which I hail 

Their hearts with sympathy — 
Knit of the sunned hours and the rains — 
Dear weather of life's joys and pains. 

With all my Love's love in my years. 

My breath flowers as the sod ; 
I am daisied with joy's bloom from tears, 

Like a little field of God ; 
By every smile's ray that unfurls 
I am younger than all glad, sweet girls. 

Something like Aaron's rod I shine. 

To the world's eyes increased 
As proof mysteriously divine 

My dear Love is God's Priest. 
Whose hallowing of my mouth's control 
Makes me a smiling of his soul. 

Yea, I am girlhood's verity 

In womanhood made truth 
As wisdom that is ecstasy ; 

Men feel my spirit's youth 
Smiles into such a happy light 
From God's touch, while mv hair turns white. 

63 



THE BOOK OF 

Yea, even as angelhood it feels, 
Sometimes, for Heaven to show 

This freshness which my freedom seals: 
My God! I thank Thee so 

For giving my soul's smiles to me 

In such a precious liberty. 



May Doncv 



48 To My Wife 

WHEN sere has touched the leaf with age 
And Time brings Leisure's glow, 
Turn softly o'er this scribbled page 
And learn the things I know. 
If in the waning summer night 
A fragrance lightly blows. 
When winds remember roses bright, 
Think to yourself . . . He knows. 

When sleeps the regal sire of day 

In western glory red, 

And lazy, crawling mists betray 

The winding river's bed, 

When moor birds call, and night birds cry, 

And night scents fill the air 

From winds that know where thyme-beds lie, 

Think to yourself . . . He's there. 

When day with evening fondly parts 
Along the gorsy hills, 

64 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And tawiiy dusk a veil imparts 
O'er little bogland rills, 
Turn to the thoughts of yesterday 
Among the cool green groves, 
And think that always and for aye 
As well as now ... He loves. 

Yet. there will come a time when I, 
Dear heart, shall leave your side 
As stars fade quietly from the sky 
When dawn wins day for bride; 
Scent of the fragrant birk and briar 
May fail their round to steer, 
Think to yourself — though worlds in fire 
May perish ... He is here. 

James C. Welsh 



49 



I 



C. L. M. 

N the dark womb where I began 
M. My mother's life made me a man. 
Through all the months of human birth 
Her beauty fed my common earth. 
I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, 
But through the death of some of her. 

Down in the darkness of the grave 
She cannot see the life she gave. 
For all her love, she cannot tell 
Whether I use it ill or well, 



65 



THE BOOK OF 

Nor knock at dusty doors to find 
Her beauty dusty in the mind. 

H the grave's gates could be undone, 
She would not know her little son, 
I am so grown, li we should meet 
She would pass by me in the street, 
Unless my soul's face let her see 
My sense of what she did for me. 

What have I done to keep in mind 

My debt to her and womankind ? 

What woman's happier life repays 

Her for those months of wretched days? 

For all my mouthless body leached 

Ere Birth's releasing hell was reached? 

What have 1 done, or tried, or said 
In thanks to that dear woman dead? 
Men triumph over women still, 
Men trample women's rights at will. 
And man's lust roves the world untamed. 

O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed. 

John Mase field 



f)0 The Mandrake's Horrid Scream 

WHY ain't the Mester back? 
Down these owd Fens there ain't noa neigh- 
bours, 
An' when he's finished wi' his labours, 
66 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

He gallops off full crack! 

I sits aloan an' shaakes wi' fear 

While he be rousin' at the ** Deer." 

Them what's in towns has niver tried 

To live aloan, all terrified; 

They talk about churchyards at night. 

Or things wi' chains dressed up in white: 

Why! Bless my soul! I'd gladly sleep 

In any place what made them creep ! 

Coz allers they've a friend about 

To hear if they should give a shout ! 

They dunnb what it is to fear 

But — here — 

What's thaif 

Only the cat ! 

An' she's as black as Death's own self, 

She squats all loathly on yon shelf, 

Wi' one unwinkin' eye on me 

I wish the Devil — 

No! 

Not He! 

I didn't mean to mention names, 

Nor interfere wi' others' gaames: 

They saay as cats is really witches, 

Like Betty Williamson, now dead. 

What uster wear her husband's breeches 

An' ate the queerest food, foak said; 

She set beside her open door 

Wi' one foot allers off the floor, 

Quietly knitting; one eye cast 

To overlook you as you passed ; 

An' just the same, yon nasty critter 



67 



THE BOOK OF 

Stares at me now that soft an' bitter ! 

Oh, Dear ! I wish my man would come ! 

May ague twist, an' strike him dumb ! 

May fairies nip his liver out 

An' leave him nare a tongue to shout. 

Forsaking me, all loansome here 

With iverything what's wrong and queer. 

From out my winder, where I sit 
I see the willows round yon pit : 
Dark Pit where Moller Homes was found 
As some said, — accidental drowned ! — 
But I heard screechin', terrified, 
About the time he must a died. 
Having noa bottom, soa they say; 
Its dreadful secrets there must stay 
Until the Resurrection Day ! 
Oh where the Devil is that Tom? 
I'll give him " pub " when he gits hoam : 
The wind is moanin' round that Pit 
As if somebody wished to flit: 
There's Things in there what stirs by night 
An' if you see, yer hair turns white; 
Around, they say, the Mandrake grows 
What's pulled at dead of night by those 
Who little care although it screams 
To wake poor mortals from their dreams. 
Our parson tells of Powers Evil : 
(An' Providence can't beat the Devil) 
Where should they laay, but in yon Pit? 
What makes me squirl to think on it : 
All gashly arms a-reachin' out 
68 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

To clamber up yer water spout 

An' reach you through — 

Oh Lor! 

PVho's thatr 

Tis something comin' 

I hear it hummin' ... 

My dear good Tom ! Thank God it's him ! 

I was afraid of something grim — 

I've bin a-wantin' you soa long — 

You lousy mawkin', stinkin' strong 

Of beer an' bacca ! Off to bed ! 

I'll larn yer, Thomas, who you've wed: 

'Fore morn, you'll wish as you was dead. 

Bernard Gilbert 



5/ An Old Woman of the Roads 

Oto have a little house ! 
To own the hearth and stool and all ! 
The heaped up sods upon the fire. 
The pile of turf against the wall ! 

To have a clock with weights and chains 
And pendulum swinging up and down ! 
A dresser filled with shining delft, 
Speckled and white and blue and brown ! 

I could be busy all the day 

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, 



69 



THE BOOK OF 

And fixing on their shelf again 

My white and blue and speckled store ! 

I could be quiet there at night 
Besides the fire and by myself. 
Sure of a bed and loth to leave 
The ticking cloth and the shining delft ! 

(^ch ! but I'm weary of mist and dark. 

And roads where there's never a house nor bush, 

And tired I am of bog and road. 

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush ! 

And I am praying to God on high. 
And I am praying Him night and day. 
For a little house — a house of my own — 
Out of the wind's and the rain's way. 

Padraic Colnm 



32 Old IV Oman Forever Sitting 

,LD woman forever sittin 



o 



Alone in the large hotel under the fans. 
Infinitely alone where around you spin 
So many lives like painted tops. 
Smearing the void a moment with their hues, 
Giddily catching at balance as they pause. 
What crime was yours, old woman, 
What sin against the Earth 
That she should give you now 
70 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

A cap of dust and furrows on your checks. 

And at the end 

A hole dug in the mould? 

Is death the promise of Fate's last rebound, 

Revenge of Time that waits witliin the clock 

And laughs awry at life, 

For a kiss, for a dream, for a child that you bore, 

For a fresh rose pinned to your bosom? 

The owd is in your spirit. 

Blinking through the oldest tree of wisdom — 

And now your fingers are weaving 

The cold pale invisible blossoms of death 

Into a waxen wreath. 

And Time 

Sits down beside you knitting with quick hands 

Grey counterpanes to cover up a grave ! 

Iris Tree 



5^ No Wife 

TOM! Tom! \Miat yer think? 
I've *ed the Parson's wife 
The first time in 'er life, acrost our door! 

What for? 

What for? Why, Tom. you'd niver niver guess! 

Not if you lived as old as Grammer Bess 

What's lately sw^ore 

She's a hunder an' four — 

She wants us tzvo, to go off an git spliced! 

71 



THE BOOK OF 

Oh Christ! 

What's got 'er now : 

The cow ! 

You well may swear; 

Coz 'ow she dare — an' why — 

Will make you swear agen, or laugh — surelie ! 

Just light yer pipe 

Now you look comfortable — so 

You're rough — old Tom — I know — 

Black as a crow ! 

But I'm fond on yer lad 

As any fool could see ! 

An' whether we're good or bad 

You've bin maain good ter me. 

But — blast 'er silly eyes ! 
What yer say to 'er, then ? 

I said a lot ! 
I telled 'er what ! 
A-comin' 'ere wi' 'er fancy airs, 
'Er what's never known no cares, 
Lookin' that wise — 
Just coz she catched a Parson ! 
(An' noa great shaakes ayther — 
She'd nowt of a feyther 
While 'er half-brother run away to sea 
An' took to blue water 
Wi' their ole cook's daughter) 
"You talk of 'sin' an' 'shame,'" I sez, "to me? 
You talks just like a fool 
y2 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Or a silly bairn at school 

Coz nobody about could doubt, 

But what we're happy together him an' me; 

Just look," I sez, ''at any in this street 

What couple can you find about to beat 

My Tom an' me what's bin together years, 

Happy an' comfortable; 

Never noa serious trouble — 

Nuthin' I mean to set us by the ears — 

Good reason why ! " 

I sez — sez I — 

"Coz we're a free an' equal pair; 

We got to treat each other fair 

Or else we part." 

Well said now, Missus ! That were smart ! 

" To part ! " sez she, " lookin' all down her noaz, 

" Ow could you leave your hoam wi' childer three?" 

I sez — sez .1 — "that dudn't bother me 

Coz I can earn enough for food an' cloaz. 

I can maintain 'em by mysen," sez I, 

" An' would at any time o' day. 

I'm not a slave — an' anyway 

I'd manage if I 'ed to do, 

I'm not a slave," I sez, " like you ! " 

You didn't — Come ! — 

I did — I did! — 

I meant it too. 

'* If your man turns up stunt," sez I, 

73 



THE BOOK OF 

'* You can't goa off, or let him fly ; 

You can't maintain yoursen — not you ! — 

Lettin' aloan the bairns, you ain't ! 

(That made her squirm all down her back !) 

*Ow could you wok up on a stack ? 

Or yok a boss or bake or wesh ? 

If your man drinks or starts to thresh 

You couldn't leave him coz he holds yer: 

You're tied by laws and friends what scolds yer 

Yer ain't like me, as free as air. 

I'm not afraid whoever stare, 

Nayther is Tom ! 

We minds oursens 

An' thinks noa more of foaks than hens, 

Coz if I doant behave mysen — 

Or him — 

We parts ! " — 

Why doant we? 

Why? 

Becoz we're free an' happy here, 

Becoz w'e treats each other fair ! " 

You give 'er the rough of yer tongue, old gel. 
But — what a sell ! 

Comin' 'ere to ride rough shod 
Coz she's a " wife." 
Why — bless my life 
She doesn't know she's born : 
She couldn't find her own corn ! 
I sent 'er off wi' a flea in er ear ! 
An will again if she dost come near! 
74 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

But she weant ! 

The white faced critter — 

Wi a noaz Hke a knife 

An' a smile that bitter 

As if she would kill. 

A wife ! 

What does she know of life? — 

Nowt ! 

Nor ever will ! — 

But tomorrer's Sunday 

An' we'll go to Church ! 

What? 

Yes ! Just for once ; an' sit together, 
Like birds of a feather ! 
We ain't ashamed to show our faces 
To them what thinks we be disgraces. 
We'll goa together Tom — for sure 
We'll goa this once an' then noa more — 
If you be willin'? 

Aye, lass — I'm willin' — 

I'll back you up as I've allers done, 

Agen Parson's wife or anyone. 

Aye; agen all the country round, 

Coz you're as good as could be found- — 

An' now — old gel — it's omost eight, 

Come on yer know we moant be late, 

Off to the Ship for our glass of aale; 

This yarn of yourn'll make a taale ! 

What's that — yer bunnet? 



75 



THE BOOK OF 

All rate ... be quick — 

I'll wait for yer agen the gate. 

Bernard Gilbert 



^4 Marriage Song 



COME up, dear chosen morning, come, 
Blessing the air with light, 
And bid the sky repent of being dark: 
Let all the spaces round the world be white, 
And give the earth her green again. 
Into new hours of beautiful delight, 
Out of the shadow where she has lain, 
Bring the earth awake for glee. 
Shining with dews as fresh and clear 
As my beloved's voice upon the air. 
For now, O morning chosen of all days, on thee 
A wondrous duty lies : 

There was an evening that did loveliness foretell, 
Thence upon thee, O chosen morn, it fell 
To fashion into perfect destiny 
The radiant prophecy. 

For in an evening of young moon, that went 
Filling the moist air with a rosy fire, 
I and my beloved knew our love ; 
And knew that thou, O morning, wouldst arise 
To give us knowledge of achieved desire. 
For, standing stricken with astonishment, 
Half terrified with delight, 

76 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Even as the moon did into clear air move 
And made a golden light, 
Lo there, croucht up against it, a dark hill, 
A monstrous back of earth, a spine 
Of hunched rock, furred with great growth of pine, 
Lay like a beast, snout in its paws, asleep; 
'Yet in its sleeping seemed it miserable, 
As though strong fear must always keep 
Hold of its heart, and drive its blood in dream. 
Yea, for to our new love, did it not seem. 
That dark and quiet length of hill. 
The sleeping grief of the world? — Out of it we 
Had like imaginations stept to be 
Beauty and golden wonder; and for the lovely fear 
Of coming perfect joy, had changed 
The terror that dreamt there ! 
And now the golden moon had turned 
To shining white, white as our souls that burned 
With vision of our prophecy assured: 
Suddenly white was the moon; but she 
At once did on a woven modesty 
Of cloud, and soon went in obscured: 
And we were dark, and vanisht that strange hill. 
But yet it was not long before 
There opened in the sky a narrow door. 
Made with pearl lintel and pearl sill ; 
And the earth's night see'd pressing there. — 
All as a beggar on some festival would peer, — 
To gaze into a room of light beyond, 
The hidden silver splendour of the moon. 
Yea, and we also, we 
Long gazed wistfully 

17 



THE BOOK OF 

Towards thee, O morning, come at last, 

And towards the light that thou wilt pour upon us soon 



II 

O soul who still art strange to sense, 
Who often against beauty wouldst complain, 
Doubting between joy and pain: 
If like the startling touch of something keen 
Against thee, it hath been 
To follow from an upland height 
The swift sun hunting rain 
Across the April meadows of a plain. 
Until the fields would flash into the air 
Their joyous green, like emeralds alight. 
Or when in the blue of night's mid-noon 
The burning naked moon 
Draws to a brink of cloudy weather near, 
A breadth of snow, firm and soft as a wing, 
Stretcht out over a wind that gently goes, — 
Through the white sleep of snowy cloud there grows 
An azure-border'd shining ring. 

The gleaming dream of the approaching joy of her; — 
What now wilt thou do. Soul ? What now, 
If with such things as these troubled thou wert? 
How wilt thou now endure, or how 
Not now be strangely hurt ? — 
When utter beauty must come closer to thee 
Than even anger or fear could be; 
When thou, like metal in a kiln, must lie 
Seized by beauty's mightily able flame; 
Enjoyed by beauty as by the ruthless glee 

78 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Of an unescapable power; 

Obeying beauty as air obeys a cry; 

Yea, one thing made of beauty and thee, 

As steel and a white heat are made the same ! 

— Ah, but I know how this infirmity 

Will fail and be not, no, not memory, 

When I begin the marvellous hour. 

This only is my heart's strain'd eagerness, 

Tong waiting for its bliss, — 

But from those other fears, from those 

That keep to Love so close, 

From fears that are the shadow of delight, 

Hide me, O joys; make them unknown to night! 

Ill 

Thou bright God that in dream camest to me last 
night. 
Thou with the flesh made of a golden light, 
Knew I not thee, thee and thy heart, 
Knew I not well, God, who thou wert? 
Yea, and my soul divinely understood 
The light what was beneath thee a ground. 
The golden light that cover'd thee round. 
Turning my sleep to a fiery morn, 
Was as a heavenly oath there sworn 
Promising me an immortal good : 
Well I knew thee, God of Marriages, thee and thy 

flame ! 
Ah, but wherefore beside thee came 
That fearful sight of another mood? 
Why in thy light, to thy hand chained, 

79 



THE BOOK OF 

Towards me its bondage terribly strained, 
Why came with thee that dreadful hound, 
The wild hound Fear, black, ravenous and gaunt? 
Why him with thee should thy dear light surround? 
Why broughtest thou that beast to haunt 
The blissful footsteps of my golden dream? — 
All shadowy black the body dread, 
All frenzied fire the head, — 

The hunger of its mouth a hollow crimson flame, 
The hatred in its eyes ablaze 
Fierce and green, stabbing the ruddy glaze, 
And sharp white jetting fire the teeth snarl'd at me, 
And white the dribbling rage of froth, — 
A throat that gaped to bay and paws working violently, 
Yet soundless all as a winging moth : 
Tugging towards me, famishing for my heart; — 
Even while thou, O golden god, were still 
Looking the beautiful kindness of thy will 
Into my soul, even then must I be. 
With thy bright promise looking at me. 
Then bitterly of that hound afraid? — 
Darkness, I know, attendeth bright, 
And light comes not but shadow comes; 
And heart must know, if it know thy light. 
Thy wild hound Fear, the shadow of love's delight 
Yea, is it thus? Are we so made 
Of death and darkness, that even thou, 
O golden God of the joys of love, 
Thy mind to us canst only prove, 
The glorious devices of thy mind, 
By so revealing how thy journeying here 
Through this mortality, doth closely bind 
80 ' 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Thy brightness to the shadow of dreadful Fear? 
Ah no, it shall not be ! Thy joyous light 
Shall hide me from the hunger of fear to-night. 



IV 

'For wonderfully to live I now begin : 

So that the darkness which accompanies 

Our being here, is fastened up within 

The power of light that holdeth me; 

And from these shining chains, to see 

My joy with bold misliking eyes, 

The shrouded figure will not dare arise. 

For henceforth, from to-night, 

I am wholly gone into the bright 

Safety of the beauty of love : 

Not only all my waking vigours plied 

Under the searching glory of love. 

But knowing myself with love all satisfied 

Even when my life is hidden in sleep; 

As high clouds, to themselves that keep 

The moon's white company, are all possest 

Silverly with the presence of their guest; 

Or as a darken'd room 

That hath within it roses, whence the air 

And quietness are taken everywhere 

Deliciously by sweet perfume. 

Lasccllcs Ahercromhie 



THE BOOK OF 



jj The Aifinity 

I HAVE to thank God I'm a woman, 
For in these ordered days a woman only 
Is free to be very hungry, very lonely. 

It is sad for Feminism, but still clear 

That man, more often than woman, is a pioneer. 

If I would confide a new thought, 

First to a man must it be brought. 

Now, for our sins, it is my bitter fate 
That such a man wills soon to be my mate. 
And so of friendship is quick end: 
When I have gained a love I lose a friend. 

It is well within the order of things 
That man should listen when his mate sings 
But the true male never yet walked 
Who liked to listen when his mate talked. 

I would be married to a full man, 
As would all women since the world began ; 
But from a wealth of living I have proved 
I must be silent, if I would be loved. 

Now of my silence I have much wealth, 

I have to do my thinking all by stealth. 

My thought may never see the day; 

My mind is like a catacomb where early Christians 

pray. 
82 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And of my silence I have much pain, 
But of these pangs I have great gain; 
For I must take to drugs or drink, 
Or I must write the things I think. 

If my sex would let me speak, 

I would be very lazy and most weak; 

I should speak only, and the things I spoke 

Would fill the air a while, and clear like smoke. 

The things I think now I write down 

And some day I will show them to the town. 

When I am sad I make thought clear ; 

I can re-read it all next year. 

I have to thank God I'm a woman 

For in these ordered days a woman only 

Is free to be very hungry, very lonely. 

Anna Wickham 



5d The Ballad of Camden Tozvn 

I WALKED with Maisie long years back 
The streets of Camden Town, 
I splendid in my suit of black, 
And she divine in brown. 

Hers was a proud and noble face 

A secret heart and eyes 
Like water in a lonely place 

Beneath unclouded skies. 



83 



THE BOOK OF 

A bed, a chest, a faded mat, 

And broken chairs a few, 
Were all we had to grace our flat 

In Hazel Avenue. 

But I could walk to Hampstead Heath, 
And crown her head with daisies. 

And watch the streaming world beneath, 
And men with other Maisies. 

When I was ill and she was pale 

And empty stood our store, 
She left the latch ke^- on its nail, 

And saw me nevermore. 

Perhaps she cast herself away 
Lest both of us should drown : 

Perhaps she feared to die, as they 
Who die in Camden Town. 

What 'came of her? The bitter nights 

Destroy the rose and lily, 
And souls are lost among the lights 

Of painted Piccadilly. 

What 'came of her? The river flows 
So deep and wide and stilly. 

And waits to catch the fallen rose 
And clasp the broken lily. 

I dream she dwells in London still 
And breathes the evening air, 

84 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And often walk to Primrose Hill, 
And hope to meet her there. 

Once more together we will live, 

For I will find her yet : 
I have so little to forgive; 

So much I can't forget. 

James Elrov Flecker 



57 Eve 

EVE, with her basket, was 
Deep in the bells and grass. 
Wading in bells and grass 
Up to her knees, 
Picking a dish of sweet 
Berries and plums to eat, 
Down in the bells and grass 
Under the trees. 

Mute as a mouse in a 
Corner the cobra lay, 
Curled round a bough of the 
Cinnamon tall . . . 
Now to get even and 
Humble proud heaven and 
Now was the moment or 
Never at all 

*' Eva ! " Each syllable 
Light as a flower fell, 

85 



THE BOOK OF 

" Eva ! " he whispered the 
Wondering maid, 
Soft as a bubble sung 
Out of a linnet's lung, 
Soft and most silverly 
" Eva ! " he said. 

Picture that orchard sprite, 
Eve, with her body white. 
Supple and smooth to her 
Slim finger tips, 
Wondering, listening, 
Listening, wondering. 
Eve with a berry 
Half-way to her lips. 

Oh had our simple Eve 
Seen through the make-believe ! 
Had she but known the 
Pretender he was ! 
Out of the boughs he came, 
Whispering still her name. 
Tumbling in twenty rings 
Into the grass. 

Here was the strangest pair 
In the world anywhere, 
Eve in the bells and grass 
Kneeling, and he 
Telling his story low. ... 
Singing birds saw them go 



86 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Down the dark path to 
The Blasphemous Tree. 

Oh what a clatter when 
Titmouse and Jenny Wren 
Saw him successful and 
Taking his leave ! 
How the birds rated him, 
How they all hated him ! 
How they all pitied 
Poor motherless Eve ! 

Picture her crying 
Outside in the lane, 
Eve, with no dish of sweet 
Berries and plums to eat, 
Haunting the gate of the 
Orchard in vain . . . 
Picture the lewd delight 
Under the hill to-night — 
" Eva ! " the toast goes round, 
" Eva ! " again. 

Ralph Hodgson 



j8 . Balkis 

BALKIS was in her marble town. 
And shadow over the world cariie down. 
Whiteness of walls, towers and piers, 
That all day dazzled eyes to tears, 
Turned from being white-golden flame, 

87 



THE BOOK OF 

And like the deep sea blue became. 

Balkis into her garden went; 

Her spirit was in discontent 

Like a torch in restless air. 

Joylessly she wandered there, 

And saw her city's azure white 

Lying under the great night, 

Beautiful as the memory 

Of a worshipping world would be 

In the mind of a god, in the hour 

When he must kill his outward power ; 

And, coming to a pool where trees 

Grew in double greeneries, 

Saw herself, as she went by 

The water, walking beautifully, 

And saw the stars shine in the glance 

Of her eyes, and her own fair countenance 

Passing, pale and wonderful. 

Across the night that filled the pool. 

And cruel was the grief that played 

With the queen's spirit; and she said: 

" What do I hear, reigning alone ? 

For to be unloved is to be alone. 

There is no man in all my land 

Dare my longing understand : 

The whole folk like a peasant bows 

Lest its look should meet my brows 

And be harmed by this beauty of mine. 

I burn their brains as I were sign 

Of God's beautiful anger sent 

To master them with punishment 

Of beauty that must pour distress 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

On hearts grown dark with ughness. 
But it is I am the punisht one. 
Is there no man, is there none. 
In whom my beauty will but move 
The lust of a delighted love; 
In whom some spirit of God so thrives 
That we may wed our lonely lives? 
Is there no man, is there none? 
She said, " I will go to Solomon." 

Lascellcs Ahcrcromhic 



5P Lancelot and Guinevere 

SIR LANCELOT beside the mere 
Rode at the golden close of day. 
And the sad eyes of Guinevere 

Went with him. with him, all the way. 

The golden light to silver turned, 
The mist came up out of the mere, 

And steadily before him burned 
The sombre gaze of Guinevere. 

A dreadful chill about him crept, 
The pleasant air to winter turned; 

Like the wan eyes of one that wept ; 
Far through the mist the faint stars burned. 

All that had sinned in days gone by 

Like pale companions round him crept — 

89 



THE BOOK OF 

All that beneath the morning sky 

Had called the night to mind and wept. 

But strangest showed his own offence 

Of all the shadows creeping by; 
The star of his magnificence 

Fell from its station in the sky. 

The lean wind robbed him of his pride; 

Keen grew the sting of his offence; 
And like a lamp within him died 

The flame of his magnificence. 

The drifting phantoms of the mere 
Were death to pleasure and to pride; 

The joy he had of Guinevere 
Faded into the dark and died. 

Oh loss of hope with loss of day 
In mist and shadow of the mere ! — 

Where with him, with him, all the way. 
Went the sad eyes of Guinevere. 

Gerald Gould 



do A Ballad of Doom 

4 4T ADIES, pretty ladies, 
Lj What do you lack? 

Ladies, pretty ladies. 
Choose from my pack. 
90 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

All the way to Heaven and all the way to Hell 
I went to fetch the fairings I have to sell." 

" If you've been to Heaven, if you've been to Hell, 

I will pay a pretty price for a thing that you can tell — 

How does my true love and how fares the foe 

Who slew him on a winter's night, very long ago?" 

** I went the road to Heaven — it is a weary way — 
I passed the open gate of Hell — you may reach it in 

a day 
Of all the many folk I saw, how should I know 
Which was your true love and which was your foe ? " 

" My love he is a gallant, blue-eyed and debonair " — 
" A thousand thousand such as he you may meet with 

anywhere " — 
" He bears upon his breast the marks of wounds and 

kisses seven." 
" I saw not any man like this in all the courts of 

Heaven." 



*■ My foe he is a dour man and his hand is bitten 

through — 
A little sign of love I gave for the deed he dared to 

do"— 
"Lady, pretty lady, 'tis other news you lack." 
" This fairing only, pedlar, will I have from out your 

pack." 



91 



THE BOOK OF 

" O lady, there in Heaven I saw the blessed stand 
A-praising God, and one there was who had a bitten 

hand; 
And one among the damned I saw, who knew not any 

rest, 
Marks of wounds and kisses seven were burning on his 

breast." 

" Go, go again, good pedlar, and bring me word again 
Why he I hate is doomed to bliss and he I love to pain. 
Go, cry my name in Heaven, in Hell my name declare, 
That I may know before I go what was answered 
there." 

" Lady, pretty lady, 

What do you lack? 
Lady, pretty lady, 

Choose from my pack. 
I've been again to Heaven, Lve been again to Hell, 
Here are news that you may choose from those I have 
to sell." 

" O what said my lover and what said my foe ? 
Tell me, trusty pedlar, that I may know. 
I'll take the road to Heaven or go my way to Hell, 
Give me news that I may choose and I will pay you 
well." 

" I cried your name before the damned, and he who 

was your friend — 
* A curse upon the silly fool who brought me to my 

end : ' 
92 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

I cried your name before the saints, and he who was 

your foe 
Caught me with his bitten hand and would not let me 

go. 

" He held me long in my despite, conjuring me by God 
And hope of Heaven, to come again back by the path I 

trod 
And swear your false-fair lover had been for ever true. 
And he your foe was damned in Hell for the deed he 

willed to do ! " 

" I'll climb the road to Heaven and kiss the wounded 

hand 
Of him who is a lover true, and he will understand. 
Then will I take my way to Hell, unto my lover-foe — 
False or true I love him, and God will let me go." 

*' Ladies, pretty ladies. 

What do you lack? 
Ladies, pretty ladies. 

Choose from my pack. 
All the way to Heaven and all the way to Hell 
I went to fetch these pretty fairings I have to sell." 

Elhabcth Rendall 



6 1 Dust 

WHEN the white flame in us is gone, 
And we that lost the world's delight 
Stiffen in darkness, left alone 

To crumble in our separate night; 

93 



THE BOOK OF 

When your swift hair is quiet in death, 
And through the lips corruption thrust 

Has stilled the labor of my breath — 
When we are dust, when we are dust ! 

Not dead, not undesirous yet, 
Still sentient, still unsatisfied, 

We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit, 
Around the places where we died. 

And dance as dust before the sun. 
And light of foot, and unconfined, 

Hurry from road to road, and run 
About the errands of the wind. 

And every mote, on earth or air, 
Will speed and gleam, down later days, 

And like a secret pilgrim fare 
By eager and invisible ways, 

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie, 

Till, beyond thinking, out of view, 

One mote of all the dust that's I 
Shall meet one atom that was you. 

Then in some garden hushed from wind, 
W^arm in a sunset's afterglow. 

The lovers in the flowers will find 
A sweet and strange unquiet grow 

Upon the peace; and, past desiring 
So high a beauty in the air, 
94 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And such a light, and such a quiring, 
And such a radiant ecstasy there. 

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew, 
Or out of earth, or in the height, 
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue, 
' Or two that pass, in light, to light. 

Out of the garden higher, higher . . . 

But in that instant they shall learn 
The shattering ecstasy of our fire, 

And the weak passionless hearts will burn 

And faint in that amazing glow, 

Until the darkness close above; 
And they will know — poor fools, they'll know ! - 

One moment, what it is to love. 

Rupert Brooke 



62 To a Greek Marble 

WHITE grave goddess, 
Pity my sadness, 

silence of Paros. 

1 am not of these about thy feet. 
These garments and decorum; 

I am thy brother, 

The lover of aforetime crying to thee, 

And thou hearest me not. 

95 



THE BOOK OF 

I have whispered thee in thy solitudes 

Of our loves in Phrygia, 

The far ecstasy of burning noons 

When the fragile pipes 

Ceased in the cypress shade, 

And the brown fingers of the shepherd 

Moved over slim shoulders ; 

And only the cicada sang. 

I have told thee of the hills 

And the lisp of reeds 

And the sun upon thy breasts, 

And thou hearest me not, 
Thou hearest me not, 

Richard Aldington 



6 J Epilogue 

WHAT shall we do for Love these days? 
How shall we make an altar-blaze 
To smite the horny eyes of men 
With the renown of our Heaven, 
And to the unbelievers prove 
Our service to our dear god, Love? 
What torches shall we lift above 
The crowd that pushes through the mire, 
To amaze the dark heads with strange fire? 
I should think I were much to blame, 
If never I held some fragrant flame 
Above the noises of the world, 

96 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares, 

Worshipt before the sacred fires 

That are like flashing curtains furi'd 

Across the presence of our lord Love. 

Nay, would that I could fill the gaze 

Of the whole earth with some great praise 

Made in a marvel for men's eyes. 

Some tower of glittering masonries, 

Therein such a spirit flourishing 

Men should see what my heart can sing: 

All that Love hath done to me 

Built into stone, a visible glee ; 

Marble carried to gleaming height 

As moved aloft by inward delight ; 

Not as with toil of chisels hewn, 

But seeming poised in a mighty tune. 

For of all those who have been known 

To lodge with our kind host, the sun, 

I envy one for just one thing: 

In Cordova of the Moors 

There dwelt a passion-minded King, 

Who set great bands of marble-hewers 

To fashion his heart's thanksgiving 

In a tall palace, shapen so 

All the wondering world might know 

The joy he had of his Moorish lass. 

His love, that brighter and larger was 

Than the starry places, into firm stone 

He sent, as if the stone were glass 

Fired and into beauty blown. 

Solemn and invented gravely 
In its bulk the fabric stood, 

9^ 



THE BOOK OF 

Even as Love, that trusteth bravely 

In its own exceeding good 

To be better than the waste 

Of time's devices; grandly spaced 

Seriously the fabric stood. 

But over it all a pleasure went 

Of carven delicate ornament, 

Wreathing up like ravishment. 

Mentioning in sculptures twined 

The blitheness Love hath in his mind; 

And like delighted senses were 

The windows, and the columns there 

Made the following sight to ache 

As the heart that did them make, 

Well I can see that shining song 

Flowering there, the upward throng 

Of porches, pillars and windowed w^alls, 

Spires like piercing panpipe calls, 

Up to the roof's snow-cloud flight ; 

All glancing in the Spanish light 

White as water of arctic tides. 

Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides. 

You had said, the radiant sheen 

Of that palace might have been 

A young god's fantasy, ere he came 

His serious worlds and suns to frame; 

Such an immortal passion 

Quiver'd among the slim hewn stone. 

And in the nights it seemed a jar 

Cut in the substance of a star, 

Wherein a wine, that will be poured 

Some time for feasting Heaven, was stored. 

98 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

But within this fretted shell, 
The wonder of Love made visible, 
The King a private gentle mood 
There placed, of pleasant quietude. 
For right amidst there was a court, 
Where always musked silences 
Listened to water and to trees ; 
And herbage of all fragrant sort, — 
Lavender, lad's-love, rosemary, 
Basil, tansy, centaury, — 
Was the grass of that orchard, hid 
Love's amazements all amid. 
Jarring the air with rumour cool. 
Small fountains played into a pool 
With sound as soft as the barley's hiss 
When its beard just sprouting is ; 
Whence a young stream, that trod on moss 
Prettily rimpled the court across. 
And in the. pool's clear idleness. 
Moving like dreams through happiness. 
Shoals of small bright fishes were; 
In and out weed-thickets bent 
Perch and carp, and sauntering went 
With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare ; 
Or on a lotus leaf would crawl, 
A brinded loach to bask and sprawl, 
Tasting the warm sun ere it dipt 
Into the water; but quick as fear 
Back his shining brown head slipt 
To crouch on the gravel of his lair. 
Where the cooled sunbeams broke in wrack, 
Split shatter'd gold about his back. 

99 



THE BOOK OF- 

So within that green-veiled air. 
Within that white-walled quiet, where 
Innocent water thought aloud, — 
Childish prattle that must make 
The wise sunlight with laughter shake 
On the leafage overbowed, — 
Often the King and his love-lass 
Let the delicious hours pass. 
All the outer world could see 
Graved and sawn amazingly 
Their love's delighted riotise, ^ 

Fixt in marble for all men's eyes; 
But only these twain could abide 
In the cool peace that withinside 
Thrilling desire and passion dwelt; 
They only knew the still meaning spelt 
By Love's flaming script, which is 
God's word written in ecstasies, 

And where is now the palace gone. 
All the magical skill'd stone, 
All the dreaming towers wrought 
By Love as if no more than thought 
The unresisting marble was? 
How could such a wonder pass? 
Ah, it was but built in vain 
Against the stupid horns of Rome, 
That pusht down into the common loam 
The loveliness that shone in Spain. 
But we have raised it up again ! 
A loftier palace, fairer far, 
Is ours, and one that fears no war. 
Safe in marvellous walls we are; 

ICO 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Wondering sense like builded fires, 
High amazement of desires, 
Delight and certainty of love, 
Closing around, roofing above 
Our unapproacht and perfect hour 
Within the splendours of love's power. 

Lascelles Ahercromhie 



64 The Golden Journey to Samarkand 

At the Gate of the Sun, Bagdad, in olden time. 

THE MERCHANTS {together) 

AWAY, for we are ready to a man ! 
Our camels sniff the evening and are glad. 
Lead on, O master of the Caravan : 

Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Bagdad. 

THE CHIEF DRAPER 

Have we not Indian carpets dark as wine. 
Turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils. 

And broideries of intricate design, 

And printed hangings in enormous bales? 

THE CHIEF GROCER 

We have rose-candy, we have spikenard. 
Mastic and terebinth and oil and spice. 

And such sweet jams meticulously jarred 
As God's own Prophet eats in Paradise. 

lOI 



THE BOOK OF 

THE PRINCIPAL JEWS 

And we have manuscripts in peacock styles 
By Ali of Damascus; we have swords 

Engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles, 
And heavy beaten necklaces, for Lords. 

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN 

But you are nothing but a lot of Jews. 

THE PRINCIPAL JEWS 

Sir, even dogs have daylight, and we pay. 

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN 

But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes, 
You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way? 

THE PILGRIMS 

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go 

Always a little further: it may be 
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, 

Across that angry or that glimmering sea, 

White on a throne or guarded in a cave 
There lives a prophet who can understand 

Why men were born but surely we are brave, 
Who make the golden journey to Samarkand. 

THE CHIEF MERCHANT 

We gnaw the nail of hurry. Master, away ! 

ONE OF THE WOMEN 

O turn your eyes to where your children stand. 
Is not Bagdad the beautiful? O stay! 

102 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

THE MERCHANTS (in choVUs) 

We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. 

AN OLD MAN 

Have you not girls and garlands in your homes, 

Eunuchs and Syrian boys at your command? 
Seek not excess : God hateth him who roams ! 

THE MERCHANTS (ill chot'lts) 

We make the golden journey to Samarkand. 

A PILGRIM WITH A BEAUTIFUL VOICE 

Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells 
When shadows pass gigantic on the sand. 

And softly through the silence beat the bells 
Along the golden road to Samarkand. 

A MERCHANT 

We travel not for trafficking alone: 

By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: 

For lust of knowing what should not be known 
We make the golden journey to Samarkand. 

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN 

Open the gate, 'O watchman of the night ! 

THE WATCHMAN 

Ho, travellers, I open. For what land 
Leave you the dim-moon city of delight? 

THE MERCHANTS (witJl a shout) 

We make the golden journey to Samarkand. 

(The Caravan passes through the gate.) 

103 



THE BOOK OF 

THE WATCHMAN {cousoHng the women) 

What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus. 
Men are unwise and curiously planned. 

^ A WOMAN 

They have their dreams, and do not think of us. 
VOICES OF THE CARAVAN {ill tkc distance, singing) 

We make the golden journey to Samarkand. 

James Elroy Flecker 



65 Arabia 

FAR are the shades of Arabia, 
Where the Princes ride at noon, 
'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets, 
Under the ghost of the moon; 
And so dark is that vaulted purple 
Flowers in the forest rise 

And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars 
Pale in the noonday skies. 

Sweet is the music of Arabia 
In my heart, when out of dreams 
I still in the thin clear murk of dawn 
Descry her gliding streams; 
H.ear her strange lutes on the green banks 
Ring loud with the grief and delight 
Of the dim-silked, dark-haired musicians 
In the brooding silence of night. 
104 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They haunt me — her lutes and her forests ; 

No beauty on earth I see 

But shadowed with that dream recalls 

Her loveliness to me: ,^ 

Still eyes look coldly upon me, 

Cold voices whisper and say — 

'He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia, 

They have stolen his wits away.' 

Walter dc la Marc 



66 Babylon 

IF you could bring her glories back ! 
You gentle sirs who sift the dust 
And burrow in the mould and must 
Of Babylon for bric-a-brac; 
Who catalogue and pigeon-hole 
The faded splendours of her soul 
And put her greatness under glass — 
If you could bring her past to pass ! 

If you could bring her dead to life! 
The soldier lad; the market wife: 
Madam buying fowls from her; 
Tip, the butcher's bandy cur; 
Workmen carting bricks and clay; 
Babel passing to and fro 
On the business of a day 
Gone three thousand years ago — 
That you cannot; then be done, 
Put the goblet down again, 

105 



THE BOOK OF 

Let the broken arch remain, 
Leave the dead men's dust alone — 

Ts it nothing how she lies, 
This old mother of you all, 
You great cities proud and tall 
Towering to a hundred skies 
Round a world she never knew, 
Is it nothing, this, to you? 
Must the ghoulish work go on 
Till her very floors are gone? 
While there's still a brick to save 
Drive these people from her grave ! 



The Jewish seer when he cried 
Woe to Babel's lust and pride 
Saw the foxes at her gates; 
Once again the wild thing waits. 
Then leave her in her last decay 
A house of owls, a foxes' den; 
The desert that till yesterday 
Hid her from the eyes of men 
In its proper time and way 
Will take her to itself again. 

Ralph Hodgson 



1 06 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



d/ Babylon 

I'M going softly all my years in wisdom if in pain — 
For, oh, the music stirs my blood as once it did 
before 
And still I hear in Babylon, in Babylon, in Babylon, 
The dancing feet in Babylon, of those who took my 
floor. 

I'm going silent all my years, but garnered in my brain 

Is that swift wit which used to flash and cut them 

like a sword 

And now I hear in Babylon, in Babylon, in Babylon, 

The foolish tongues in Babylon, of those who took 

my word. 

I'm going lonely all my days, who was the first to crave 

The second, fierce, unsteady voice, that struggled 

to speak free — 

And now I watch in Babylon, in Babylon, in Babylon, 

The pallid loves in Babylon of men who once loved 

me. 

I'm sleeping early by a flame as one content and gray, 
But, oh, I dream a dream of dreams beneath a winter 
moon, 
I breathe the breath of Babylon, of Babylon, of Baby- 
lon, 
The scent of silks in Babylon that floated to a tune. 

107 



THE BOOK OF 

A band of years has flogged me out — an exile's fate 
is mine, 
To sit with mumbling crones and still a heart that 
cries with youth. 
But, oh, to walk in Babylon, in Babylon, in Babylon, 
The happy streets in Babylon, when once the dream 
was truth. 

Viola Taylor 



68 The Bough of Nonsense 

AN IDYLL 

BACK from the Sommc two Fusiliers 
Limped painfully home; the elder said, 
S. " Robert, I've lived three thousand years 
This Summer, and Fm nine parts dead." 
R. " But if that's truly so," I cried, " quick, now, 
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough 

" Where once a nonsense built her nest 

With skulls and flowers and all things queer, 

In an old boot, with patient breast 

Hatching three eggs; and the next year. . . ." 

S. " Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid 

Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did." 

Said he, " Before this quaint mood fails, 
We'll sit and weave a nonsense hymn," 
R. " Hanging it up with monkey tails 
In a deep grove all hushed and dim . . ." 
io8 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

S. " To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees," 
R. " Planted in dreams -by pious Portuguese," 

S. " Which men are wise beyond their time. 

And worship nonsense, no one more." 

R. " Hard by, among old quince and lime, 

They've built a temple with no floor," 

^. " And whosoever worships in that place, 

He disappears from sight and leaves no trace." 

R. " Once the Galatians built a fane 

To Sense : what duller God than that ? " 

5. " But the hrst day of autumn rain 

The roof fell in and crushed them flat." 

R. Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls 

When nonsense is foundation for the walls." 

I tell him. old Galatian tales; 

He caps them in quick Portuguese, 

While phantom creatures with green scales 

Scramble and roll among the trees. 

The hymn swells; on a bough above us sings 

A row of bright pink birds, flapping their wings. 

Robert Graves 



6p A Song For Grocers 

HEAVEN bless grocers' shops wherein 
Raisins are with tawny skin, 
Murrey wine, and green liqueurs. 
Curious spice in canisters, 

109 



THE BOOK OF 

Honest ham, and mother tea, 

Isinglass and carroway, 

Rennet, vinegar, and salt 

That honour has, and clear cobalt: 

Coffee, that swart Mussulman, 

Caviar the Caspian, 

Suave oil, angry condiments, 

Anchovies, and sweet essence 

Of clove and almond, honeycomb. 

Jam our English orchards from, 

Portly cheeses full of mould, 

Sugars and treacles brown or gold; 

Soap, to keep us pure, and white 

Candles, the slim sons of light, 

Butter like the flow'r of gorse, 

Wheat meal fine and oat meal coarse. 

Soda for our maid's service, 

Sago, tapioca, rice 

An economic trinity, 

Bacon, friend ham's affinity. 

Bananas, which the People please. 

Proletarian oranges. 

While of fruits in syrup a 

Frequent cornucopia. 

Eggs fresh within and white without. 

Cocoa of origin devout. 

Nuts and string and brooms and mops. 

Saveloys and lollipops — 

God, be good to grocers' shops ! 

Sherard Vines 



no 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



70 '' Psittachus Eois Imitatrix ales ab 
Indis." — Ovid 

THE parrot's voice snaps out — 
No good to contradict — 
What he says he'll say again: 
Dry facts, like biscuits. 

His voice and vivid colours 

Of his breast and wings 

Are immemorably old; 

Old dowagers dressed in crimped satin 

Boxed in their rooms 

Like specimens beneath a glass 

Inviolate — and never changing, 

Their memory of emotions dead; 

The ardour of their summers 

Sprayed like camphor 

On their silken parasols 

Intissued in a cupboard. 

'* Psittachus eois imitatrix ales ab indis." 

Reflective, but with never a new thought 
The parrot sways upon his ivory perch — 
Then gravely turns a somersault 
Through rings nailed in the roof — 
Much as the sun performs his antics 
As he climbs the aerial bridge 

III 



THE BOOK OF 

We only see 

Through crystal prisms in a falling rain. 

Sachevercll Sitwell 



71 Fables 

WHO taught the centaur first to drink 
Ladling his huge hands from the brink 
When other monsters lie and lap * 
The waters like a fruitful pap? 

The same who by ingenious ways 

Taught the chameleon his rays 

To take from leaves of tow'ring trees 

Strung thick with dew-bells that the bees 

Set ringing, till they bring the honey. 

Thrilled with music, gold with money 

Back to their castles in the clouds — 

And the chameleon, his crowds 

Of foes to fight with, has two eyes 

That travel sideways, no surprise 

On any side. He swiftly sees 

All — flowers, slow floating birds and bees. 

The gentle, loving unicorn 
Will never eat the grass — 
All bushes have too many thorns 
Their leaves are made of brass, 
His horn is given him to take 
The soft fruit from the trees, 
" Please grasp my horn and roughly shake, 
112 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

nymph, among those leaves; 

This pear transfixed upon my horn; 

1 cannot reach "— beyond the brun ; 
Clutched at; she misses; it has gone — 
" Alas ! You've got it ! I can't swim." 

To comb a satyr's silken beard 
Arabian travellers aspire, 
They beg, they bribe ; more loved than feared 
The satyr trots to take his hire — 
Fawning, he takes from outstretched hand 
Such fruit his eyes have sometimes seen 
On swaying branches where the land 
Sighs in a soft wind and the green 
Leaves shake beneath the nightingale. 
Thus cajoled, they can reach his beard 
Where gums lie, gathered from the frail 
Flowers he feeds on, where no voice is heard. 

Sachevercll Sitwell 



72 



Check 

THE night was creeping on the ground 
She crept and did not make a sound 
Until she reached the tree, and then 
She covered it, and stole again 
Along the grass beside the wall. 

I heard the rustle of her shawl 
As she threw blackness everywhere 
Upon the sky and ground and air. 



113 



THE BOOK OF 

And in the room where I was hid : 
But no matter what she did 
To everything that was without, 
She could not put my candle out. 

So I stared at the night, and she 
Stared back solemnly at me. 

James Stephens 



7j Myself on the Merry-Go-Kound 

To Robert Nichols 

THE giddy sun's kaleidoscope — 
The pivot of a switchback world 
Is tied to it by many a rope: 
The people (flaunting streamers), furled 
Metallic banners of the seas, 
The giddy sun's kaleidoscope 
Casts colours on the face of these: 
Cosmetics of Eternity, 
And powders faces blue as death ; 
Beneath the parasols we see 
Gilt faces tarnished by sea-breath, 
And crawling like the foam, each horse 
Beside the silken tents of sea 
In whirlpool circles takes his course. 
Huge houses, humped like camels, chase 
The wooden horses' ceaseless bound; 
The throbbing whirring sun that drags 
The streets upon its noisy round 
With tramways chasing them in vain, 
114 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Projects in coloured cubes each face — 

Then shatters them upon our brain. 

The house-fronts hurl them back, they jar 

Upon cross-currents of the noise: 

Like atoms of my soul they are, 

They shake my body's equipoise, — 

A clothes line for the Muse to fly 

(So thin and jarred and angular) 

Her rags of tattered finery. 

Beneath the heat of trees' sharp hue — 

A ceaseless whirr, metallic-green, 

Sounds like a gimlet shrilling through 

The mind, to reach the dazzling sheen 

Of meanings life can not decide: 

Then words set all awry, and you 

Are left upon the other side. 

Our senses, each a wooden horse, 

We paint till they appear to us 

Like life, and then queer strangers course 

In our place on each Pegasus. 

The very heat seems but to be 

The product of some man-made force — 

Steam from the band's machinery. 

The heat is in a thousand rags 

Reverberant with sound, whose dry 

Frayed ends we never catch, seem tags 

Of our unfinished entity; 

And like a stretched accordion 

The houses throb with heat, and flags 

Of smoke are tunes light plays upon. 

The band's kaleidoscopic whirr 

Tears up those jarring threads of heat 

115 



THE BOOK OF 

The crowds; plush mantles seem to purr — 
Crustacean silk gowns take the beat 
From houses; each reverberates 
With this vitality and stir; 
The giddy heat acerberates. 
And in the swirling restaurant 
Where liqueurs at perpetual feud 
Dispute for sequinel lights and taunt 
Hot leaves, our dusty souls exude 
Their sentiments, while scraps of sense 
Float inward from the band and flaunt — 
Disturb the general somnolence. 

Edith' Sitwell 



74 Philosophy 

**T AST night in the Baltic Tavern tap 

J-^ I met,'' Mike said, " a longshore chap 
Who said, ' Don't sailorin' look queer 
With all them mines an' suchlike gear? 
If I was you,' 'e says, says 'e, 
' I'd take a shore job same as me. 
An' leave this trouble that's around 
For them that's fond o' gettin' drowned.' 

" ' No, no,' I says, ' I ain't a-givin' 

It up for any square'ead livin', 

The ways I put it in my 'ead 

Is — no man's done until 'e's dead, 

An' if it comes to dyin', sure, 

A man dies once, an' then no more,' 

Ii6 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

"I says, ' When ships 'as left off goin'. 
An' grass on London docks is growin', 
(The same's it is, so I've 'eard say, 
On all them 'Amburg wharves this day), 
When Lloyd's is broke an' on their uppers, 
An' all the owners in the scuppers, 
Why, then,' I says, ' I might be lookin' 
For a job o' cartin' coals or cookin', 

Or washin' pots, or sellin' tapes. 
Or leadin' bears, or learnin' apes, 
But since, as I 'ear tell, so far 
There's ships still passin' Mersey Bar, 
An' one or two comes in each day 
To London Docks, so I've 'eard say. 
An' ships can't sail without no crew, — 
So long as they sail, I sail too. 

'"If you, young man, 'ad follered the sea 

Your 'ole life long, the same as me, 

'Ad knowed it wakin' an' asleep, 

An' seen God's wonders in the deep, 

I guess you'd not be rattled much 

By mines or submarines or such, 

Or care a bloomin' finger snap 

For no fool Kaiser or such chap . . . 

" ' Besides,' I says, ' when all is said, 

Just think o' them poor chaps that's dead — 

Poor pals o' mine as 'ad to die — 

They took their chances . . . so do I ! '" 

Cicely Fox Smith 
1^7 



THE BOOK OF 



y5 Billy's Yarn 



'^r\0 seen her off?" ... 

V^ " Me," says the tide, 
" I 'ad to, for why, there was no one beside : 
For sailor-folks' women, they're busy enough, 
'Thout 'angin' round pier-'eds to see their chaps off. 
The gulls all about 'er they wrangled an' cried, 
An' I seen 'er off," says the Liverpool tide. 



" Oo waved 'er good-bye?" . . . 

" Me," says old Tuskar, 
*' When the sun it went down an' the light is got dusker, 
(With a sea gettin' up an' the wind blowin' keen) 
An' the smoke of 'er funnels could 'ardly be seen, 
An' the last of the sunset was red in the sky . . . 
With the first of my flashes I waved 'er good-bye." 

" Oo seen 'er sink ? " . . . 

" Me," says the sun, 
" At the top o' my climbin' I seen the thing done . . . 
I seen 'er 'eave to, an' I seen 'er 'ull shiver, 
Settle, an' stumble, an' tremble, an' quiver, 
An' 'er stern it went up, an' 'er bow it went down. 
An' the most of 'er people they just 'ad to drown, 
An' I'd never a cloud for to shut out the sight, 
So I seen 'er sink," says the sun in 'is might. 

" Oo seen the last of 'er? " . . . 
" Us," says the crew, 
All that was left out o' twenty-and-two, 
it8 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

" We seen the last of 'er — floatin' round ' 
On a bottom-up boat among dead uns and drowned — 
We seen 'er waterways runnin' with blood — 
We seen poor mates of ours shot where they stood — 
But them chaps as done it, I tell you now true, 
They ain't seen the last of us yet," says the crew, 
'" No, you bet your sweet life." says what's left o' 
the crew. 

Cicely Fox Smith 



76 '' Ships That Pass " 

An Episode of the Cruiser Patrol 

THERE are ships that pass in the night-time, some 
poet has told us how, 
But a ship that passed in the day-time is the one I'm 

thinking of now. 
Where the seas roll green from the Arctic and the 

wind comes keen from the Pole, 
'Tween Rockall Bank and the Shetlands. up North 
on the long patrol 

We sighted her one day early; the forenoon watch 

was begun, 
There was m.ist like wool on the water, and a glimpse 

of a pale cold sun. 
And she came through the dim grey weather — a thing 

of wonder and gleam. 
From the port o' the Past on a bowline, close-hauled 

on a wind of dream. 

119 



THE BOOK OF 

The rust of years was upon her — she was weathered 

by many a gale — 
The flag of a Dago republic went up to her peak at 

our hail; 
But I knew her — Lord God ! I knew her, as how 

could I help but know 
The ship that I served my time in, no matter how 

long ago ! 

I'd have climbed to her royals blindfold. I'd have 

known her spars in a crowd ; 
Aloft and alow, I knew her, -brace and halliard and 

shroud — 
From the scroll-work under her stern-ports to the 

paint on her figure-head — 
And the shout, " All hands," on her main deck would 

have tumbled me up from the dead. 

She moved like a queen on the water, with the grace 

that was hers of yore. 
The sun on her shining canvas — what had she to do 

with war. 
With a world that is full of trouble and seas that are 

stained with crime ? 
She came like a dream remembered, dreamt once in 

a happier time. 

She was youth, and its sorrow that passes — the light, 
the laughter, the joy, 

The South, and the small white cities, and the care- 
free heart of a boy, 

120 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The farewell flash of the Fastnet to light you the 

whole world round, 
And the hoot of the tug at parting — and the song 

of the homeward bound. 

The sun, and the flying-fish weather — night, and a 

fiddle's tune — 
And palms, and the warm maize-yellow of a low West 

Indian moon — 
Storm in the high South latitudes — and the boom of 

a Trade-filled sail — 
And the anchor watch in the tropics, and the old Sou' 

Spainer's tale. 

Was it the lap of the wave I heard or the chill wind's 

cry. 
Or a snatch of a deep-sea chantey I knew in the 

years gone by? 
Was it the whine of the gear in the sheaves, or the 

sea-gulls' call. 
Or the ghost of my shipmates' voices, tallying on to 

the fall?" 



I went through her papers duly — and no one, I hope 

could see 
A freight of the years departed was the cargo she 

bore for me ! 
I talked with her Dago captain while we searched 

her for contraband, 
And ... I longed for one grip of her wheel-spokes 

like a grip of a friend's right hand. 

121 



THE BOOK OF 

And I watched while her hehii went over, and the sails 

were sheeted home, 
And under her moving forefoot the bubbles broke 

into foam. 
Till she faded from sight in the greyness — a thing 

of wonder and gleam. 
For the port of the Past on a bowline — closehauled 

on a wind of dream ! 

Cicely Fox Smitli 



77 '" In Pri^jc 

A SHIP was built in Glasgow, and oh. she looked 
a daisy — 
(Just the way that some ships do!) 
An' the only thing against 'er was she alius steered 
so crazy 
(An' it's true, my Johnnie Bowline, true!) 

They sent 'er out in ballast to Oregon for lumber. 
An' before she dropped her pilot she all but lost 'er 
number. 



They sold 'er into Norway because she steered so 

funny. 
An' she nearly went to glory before they drawed the 

money. 

They sold 'er out o' Norway — they sold 'er into Chile, 
An' Chile got a bargain because she steered so silly. 

122 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They chartered 'er to Germans with a bunch o' greasers 

f orrard ; 
Old shellbacks wouldn't touch 'er because she steered 

so 'orrid. 

She set a course for Bremen with contraband inside 

'er, 
An' she might 'ave got there sometime if a cruiser 

'adn't spied 'er.' 

She nearly drowned the boarders because she cut such 

capers. 
But they found she w^as a German through inspectin' 

of her papers. 

So they put a crew on board 'er, which was both 

right and lawful, 
An' the prize crew 'ad a picnic because she steered' 

so awful. 

But they brought 'er into Kirkwall, an' then they said, 

*' Lord lumme 
If I ever see an 'ooker as steered so kind o' rummy ! " 

But she'll fetch her price at auction, for oh, she looks 
a daisy. 
(Just the way that some ships do!) 
An' the chap as tops the biddin' won't know she steers 
so crazy 
(But it's true, my Johnnie Bowline, true!) 

Cicely Fox Smith 



123 



THE BOOK OF 



y8 The Little Waves of Breffny 

THE grand road from the mountain goes shining 
to the sea, 
And there is traffic in it, and many a horse and cart ; 
But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me, 
And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through 
my heart. 

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the 

hill. 

And there is glory in it, and terror on the wind; 

But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, 

An^ the little winds of twilight are dearer to my 

mind. 

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on 
their way. 
Shining green and silver with the hidden herring 
shoal ; 
But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my 
heart in spray, 
And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through 
my soul. 

Eva Gore-Booth 



124 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



7p Cargoes 

OUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir, 
Rowing home to haven in smmy Palestine, 
With a cargo of ivory, 
And apes and peacocks. 
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. 

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, 

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, 

With a cargo of diamonds, 

Emeralds, amethysts, 

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. 

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack. 

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, 

With a cargo of Tyne coal. 

Road-rails, pig-lead, 

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays, 

John Masefield 



So Deep Water Jack 

OH, it's "ah, fare you well," for the deep sea's 
crying. 
You thought you could forget it, but it's no use trymg, 
Trying to forget it when it calls you so ! . . . 
Hey, Deep Water Johnnie, kiss your girl and go ! 

125 



THE BOOK OF 

Here's warmth, and soft living, and an easy bed I 
It's toil, and much peril, that you're going to instead. 
Hard life, and bitter faring, and a poor man's fee 
Are all of a man's portion that follows the sea. 

But it's " ah, fare you well," the deep sea's calling 
Back to cold and hunger and heaving and hauling, 
To decks awash and frozen yards, as very well you 

know : 
But ah, Deep \\'ater Johnnie, kiss your girl and go ! 

How can a man help it, when the God that made him 
Set his feet to follow where the four winds bade him ? 
How should a man help it, when his heart goes jigging 
To the sea's song and the sail's song and wind through 
the rigging? 



And it's " ah, fare you well," for the deep sea's crying I 
You thought you could forget it, but it's no use trying 
Trying to forget it when it calls you so ! . . . 
Hey, Deep Water Johnnie, kiss your girl and go ! 

Cicely Fox Smith 



8 1 Uxhridge Road 

THE Western Road goes streaming out to seek 
^^ the cleanly wnld, 
It pours the city's dim desires towards the undetiled. 
It sweeps betwixt the huddled homes about its eddies 
grown 
126 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

To smear the little space between the city and the 

sown : 
The torments of that seething tide who is there that 

can see? 
There's one who walked with starry feet the western 

road bv me ! 



He is the Drover of the soul ; he leads the flock of men 
All wistful on that weary track, and brings them back 

again. 
The dreaming few, the slaving crew, the motley caste 

of hfe — 
The wastrel and artificer, the harlot and the wife — 
They may not rest, for ever pressed by one they can- 
not see : 
The one who walked with starry feet the western road 
by me. 



He drives them east, he drives them west, between 

the dark and light ; 
He pastures them in city pens, he leads them home 

at night. 
The towery trams, the threaded trains, like shuttles to 

and fro 
To weave the web of working days in ceaseless travel 

go. 
How harsh the warp, how long the weft ! who shall 

the fabric see? 
The one who walked with starry feet the western road 

by me ! 

127 



THE BOOK OF 

Throughout the living joyful year at lifeless tasks to 

strive, 
And scarcely at the end to save gentility alive; 
The villa plot to sow and reap, to act the villa lie, 
Beset by villa fears to live, midst villa dreams to die; 
Ah, who can know the dreary woe? and w^ho the 

splendour see? 
The one who walked with starry feet the western road 

by me. 

Behold! he lent me as we went the vision of the seer; 
Behold! I saw the life of men, the life of God shine 

clear. 
I saw the hidden Spirit's thrust ; I saw the race fulfil 
The spiral of its steep ascent, predestined of the Will. 
Yet not unled, but shepherded by one they may not 

see — 
The one who walked with starry feet the western road 

by me ! 

Evelyn Underhill 



82 Sorley's Weather 

WHEN outside the icy rain 
Comes leaping helter-skelter, 
Shall I tie my restive brain 
Snugly under shelter? 

Shall I make a gentle song 
Here in my firelit study, 
128 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

.When outside the winds blow strong 
And the lanes are muddy? 

With old wine and drowsy meats 

Am I to fill my belly? 
Shall I glutton here with Keats? 

Shall I drink with Shelley? 

Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good: 
Poetry makes both better. 
Clay is wet and so is mud, 
Winter rains are wetter. 

Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill, 
For though the winds come frorely, 

I'm away to the rain-blown hill 
And the ghost of Sorley. 

Robert Graves 



8 J A Drover 

TO Meath of the pastures, 
From wet hills by the sea, 
Through Leitrim and Longford, 
Go my cattle and me. 

I hear in the darkness 
Their slipping and breathing — 
I name them the bye-ways 
They're to pass without heeding; 

129 



THE BOOK OF 

Then the wet, winding roads, 
Brown bogs with bladk water; 
And my thoughts on white ships 
And the King o' Spain's daughter. 

! farmer, strong farmer ! 
You can spend at the fair; 
But your face you must turn 
To your crops and your care. 

And soldiers — red soldiers ! 
You've seen many lands; 
But you walk two by two, 
And by captain's commands. 

O ! the smell of the beasts, 
The wet wind in the morn ; 
And the proud and hard earth 
Never broken for corn ; 

And the crowds at the fair. 
The herds loosened and blind, 
Loud words and dark faces 
And the wild blood behind. 

(O ! strong men, with your best 

1 would strive breast to breast, 
I could quiet your herds 

With my words, with my words.) 

I will bring you, my kine, 
Where there's grass to the knee; 



130 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

But you'll think of scant croppings 
Harsh with salt of the sea. 

Padraic Colum 



84 Haymaking 

AFTER night's thunder far away had rolled 
The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold, 
And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled, 
Like the first gods before they made the world 
And misery, swimming the stormless sea 
In beauty and in divine gaiety. 
The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn 
With leaves — the holly's Autumn falls in June — 
And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat. 
The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit 
With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd 
Of children pouring out of school aloud. 
And in the little thickets where a sleeper 
For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper 
x\nd garden warbler sang unceasingly; 
While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee 
The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow 
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow. 
Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown 
Travelled the road. In the field sloping down 
Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook, 
Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook 
Out in the sun; and the long wagon stood 
Without its team, it seemed it never would 
Move from the shadow of that single yew. 

13^ 



THE BOOK OF 

The team, as still, until their task was due, 

Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade 

That three squat oaks mid-field together made 

Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut, 

And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but 

Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean. 

The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin, 

But still. And all were silent. All was old, 

This morning time, with a great age untold, 

Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome, 

Than, at the field's far edge, the farmer's home, 

A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree. 

Under the heavens that know not what years be 

The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements 

Uttered even what they will in times far hence — 

All of us gone out of the reach of change — 

Immortal in a picture of an old grange. 

Edward Thomas 



85 There are Songs Enough 

THERE are songs enough of love, of joy, of grief 
Roads to the sunset, alleys to the moon; 
Poems of the red rose and the golden leaf, 
Fantastic faery and gay ballad tune. 

The long road unto nothing I will sing, 
Sing on one note, monotonous and dry, 

Of sameness, calmness and the years that bring 
No more emotion than the fear to die. 
132 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Grey house, grey house and after that grey house, 
Another house as grey and steep and still ; ^ 

An old cat tired of playing with a mouse, 
A sick child tired of chasing down the hill. 

Shuffle and hurry, idle feet, and slow. 
Grim face and merry face, so ugly all ! 

Why do you hurry? Where is there to go? 

Why are you shouting? Who is there to call? 

Lovers still kissing, feverish to- drain 

Stale juices from the shrivelled fruit of lust: 

A black umbrella held up in the rain, 

The raindrops making patterns in the dust. 

If this distaste I hold for fools is such. 
Shall I not spit upon myself as well? 

Do I not eat and drink and smile as much? 
Do I not fatten also in this hell? 

Sadness and joy — if they were melted up, 

Things that were great — upon the fires of time 

Drop but as soup in the accustomed cup, 
Settle in stagnance, trickle into grime. 

Faith, freedom, art that fire a man or two 
And set him like a pilgrim on his way 

W'ith Beauty's face before him — what of you, 
Priest, Butcher, Scholar,' King, upon that day? 

The dullard-masses that no god can save ! 
If I were God, to rise and strike you down 

1-33 



THE BOOK OF 

And break your churches in an angry wave 
And make a furious bonfire of your town ! 

God in a coloured globe, alone and still, 
Embroidering wonders with a fearless brain, 

On loom of spaces measureless, to fill 

The empty air with passion and with pain. 

Emblazon all the heavens with desire 

And Wisdom delved for in the depths of time — 

Thoughts sculptured mountainous, and fancy's fire 
Caught in the running swiftness of a rhyme. 

Passion high-pedestalled, pangs turned to treasure, 
Perfected and undone and built afresh 

With concentrated agony and Pleasure . . . 
If I were God, and not a weight of flesh! 

Iris Tree 



86 Happy Is England Nozv 

THERE is not anything more wonderful 
Than a great people moving towards the deep 
Of an unguessed and unfeared future; nor 
Is aught so dear of all held dear before 
As the new passion stirring in their veins 
W^hen the destroying Dragon wakes from sleep. 

Happy is England now, as never yet ! 
And though the sorrows of the slow days fret 
Her faithfullest children, grief itself is proud. 
134 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Ev'n the warm beauty of this spring and summer 
That turns to bitterness turns then to gladness 
Since for this England the beloved ones died. 

Happy is England in the brave that die 

For wrongs not hers and wrongs so sternly hers; 

Happy in those that give, give, and endure 

The pain that never the new years may cure; 

Happy in all her dark woods, green fields, towns, 

Pier hills and rivers and her chafing sea. 

What'er was dear before is dearer now. 
There's not a bird singing upon his bough 
But sings the sweeter in our English ears: 
There's not a nobleness of heart, hand, brain 
But shines the purer ; happiest is England now 
In those that fight, and watch with pride and tears, 

lohn Freeman 



8y August, ipi4 

HOW still this quiet cornfield is to-night ! 
By an intenser glow the evening falls. 
Bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light; 
Among the stocks a partridge covey calls. 

The windows glitter on the distant hill : 
Beyond the hedge the sheep-bells in the fold 
Stumble on sudden music and are still ; 
The forlorn pinewoods droop above the wold. 

135 



THE BOOK OF 

An endless quiet valley reaches out 
Past the blue hills into the evening sky; 
Over the stubble, cawing goes a rout 
Of rooks from harvest, flagging as they fly. 

So beautiful it is, I never saw 
So great a beauty on these English fields, 
Touched by the twilight's coming into awe, 
Ripe to the soul and rich with summer's yields. 

These homes, this valley spread below me here, 
The rooks, the tilted stacks, the beasts in pen. 
Have been the heartfelt things past-speaking dear 
To unknown generations of dead men. 

Who, century after century, held these farms, 
And, looking out to watch the changing sky. 
Heard, as we hear, the rumours and alarms 
Of war at hand and danger pressing nigh. 

And knew, as we know, that the message meant 
The breaking off of ties, the loss of friends. 
Death, like a miser getting in his rent. 
And no new stones laid where the trackway ends. 

The harvest not yet won, the empty bin, 
The friendly horses taken from the stalls, 
The fallow on the hill not yet brought in, 
The cracks unplastered in the leaking walls. 

Yet heard the news, and went discouraged home, 
And brooded by the fire with heavy mind, 
136 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

With such dumb lovhig of the Berkshire loam 
As breaks the dumb hearts of the English kind, 

Then sadly rose and left the well-loved Downs, 
And so by ship to sea, and knew no more 
The fields of home, the byres, the market towns. 
Nor the dear outline of the English shore. 

But knew the misery of the soaking trench, 
The freezing in the rigging, the despair 
In the revolting second of the wrench 
When the blind soul is flung upon the air. 

And died (uncouthly, most) in foreign lands 
For some idea but dimly understood 
Of an English city never built by hands 
Which love of England prompted and made good. 

If there be any life beyond the grave. 
It must be near the men and things we love, 
Some power of quick suggestion how to save, 
Touching the living soul as from above. 

An influence from the Earth from those dead hearts 
So passionate once, so deep, so truly kind. 
That in the living child the spirit starts, 
Feeling companioned still, not left behind. 

Surely above these fields a spirit broods, 
A sense of many watchers, muttering near. 
Of the lone Downland with the forlorn woods 
Loved to the death, inestimably dear. 

137 



THE BOOK OF 

A muttering from beyond the veils of Death 
From long-dead men, to whom this quiet scene 
Came among blinding tears with the last breath, 
The dying soldier's vision of his queen. 

All the unspoken worship of those lives 
Spent in forgotten wars at other calls 
Glimmers upon thesp fields where evening drives 
Beauty like breath, so gently darkness falls. 

Darkness that makes the meadows holier still ; 
The elm-trees sadden in the hedge, a sigh 
Moves in the beech-clump on the haunted hill, 
The rising planets deepen in the sky, 

And silence broods like spirit on the brae: 
A glimmering moon begins, the moonlight runs 
Over the grasses of the ancient way 
Rutted this morning by the passing guns. 

John Maseficld 



88 19 1 4 



PEACE 

NOW, God be thanked who has matched us w4th 
His hour, 
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, 
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power 
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, 

13S 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, 
Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move, 
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, 
And all the little emptiness of love ! 
Oh ! we, who have known shame, we have found re-^ 

lease there. 
Where there's no ill. no grief, but sleep has mending. 
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath ; 
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there 
But only agony, and that has ending; 
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. 



II 

SAFETY 

Dear ! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He v^ho has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, ''Who is so safe as v;^e?" 
We have found safety with all things undying. 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth. 
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, 
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. 
We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. 
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. 
War know^s no power. Safe shall be my going. 
Secretly armed against all death's endeavor; 
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; 
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. 



39 



THE BOOK OF 
III 

THE DEAD 

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich-Dead ! 

There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, 

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. 

These laid the world away ; poured out the red 

Sweet wine of youth ; gave up the years to be 

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, 

That men call age; and those who would have been. 

Their sons, they gave, their immortality. 

Blow, bugles, blow ! They brought us, for our dearth, 

Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. 

Honor has come back, as a king, to earth. 

And paid his subjects with a royal wage; 

And Nobleness walks in our ways again ; 

And we have come into our heritage. 

IV 
THE DEAD 

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, 

Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. 

The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs. 

And sunset, and the colors of the earth. 

These had seen movement, and heard music; known 

Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; 

Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; 

Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is 

ended. 
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter 
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, 

140 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance 
In wandering loveliness. He leaves a white 
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, 
A width, a shining peace, under the night. 



THE SOLDIER 

If I should die, think only this of me: 

That there's some corner of a foreign field 

That is forever England. There shall be 

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; 

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware. 

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; 

A body of England's, breathing English air, 

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, 

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given 

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; 

And laughter, learnt of friends ; and gentleness, 

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 

Rupert Brooke 



8q The Kiss 

TO these I turn, in these I trust; 
Brother Lead and Sister Steel. 
To his blind power I make appeal ; 
I guard her beauty clean from rust. 

141 



THE BOOK OF 

He spins and burns and loves the air, 
And splits a skull to win my praise; 
But up the nobly marching days 
She glitters naked, cold and fair. 

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this; 
That in good fury he may feel 
The body where he sets his heel 
Quail from your downward darting kiss. 

Siegfried Sassoon 



go The Spires of Oxford 

(as seen from the train) 

I SAW the spires of Oxford 
As I was passing by. 
The gray spires of Oxford 
Against a pearl-gray sky. 
My heart was with the Oxford men 
Who went abroad to die. 

The years go fast in Oxford, 
The golden years and gay, 

The hoary Colleges look down 
On careless boys at play, 

But when the bugles sounded war ! 
They put their games away. 

They left the peaceful river. 
The cricket-field, the squad, 
142 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The shaven lawns of Oxford 

To seek a bloody sod, — 
They gave their merry youth away 

For country and for God. 

God rest you, happy gentlemen, 
Who laid your good lives down, 

Who took the khaki and the gun 
Instead of cap and gown. 

God bring you to a fairer place 
Than even Oxford town. 

Winifred M. Letts 



Qi Conscripts 

6 4 \^ ALL in, that awkward squad, and strike no more 

JL? Attractive attitudes ! Dress by the right ! 
The luminous rich colours that you wore 
Have changed to hueless khaki in the night. 
Magic? What's magic got to do with you? 
There's no such thing ! Blood's red and skies are 
blue." 

They gasped and sweated, marching up and down. 
I drilled them till they cursed my raucous shout. 
Love chucked his lute away and dropped his crown. 
Rhyme got sore heels and wanted to fall out. 
" Left, right ! Press on your butts ! " They looked at 

me 
Reproachful; how I longed to set them free! 

143 



THE BOOK OF 

I gave them lectures on Defence, Attack ; 
They fidgeted and shuffled, yawned and sighed, 
And boggled at my questions. Joy was slack, 
And Wisdom gnawed his fingers, gloomy-eyed. 
Young Fancy — how I loved him all the while — 
Stared at his note-book with a rueful smile. 

Their training done, T shipped them all to France. 

Where most of those I'd loved too well got killed. 

Rapture and pale Enchantment and Romance, 

And many a sickly, slender lord who'd filled 

My soul long since with litanies of sin, 

Went home, because they couldn't stand the din. 

But the kind, common ones that I despised, 
(Hardly a man of them Fd count as friend). 
What stubborn-hearted virtues they disguised! 
They stood and played the hero to the end. 
Won gold and silver medals bright with bars, 
And marched resplendent home with crowns and stars. 

Siegfried Sassoon 



p2 Youth and Age 



YOUTH 

OUTSIDE the church the mourning children cried 
For some old man who died of ripe old age, 
Mourning his short appearance on this stage. 
They said: "He was but seventy, and then he died." 
144 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 
II 

THE OLD 

Throughout this dreadful war we sit and sigh, 

For all the youthful millions that must die. 

Yet still we see God's mercy, and we say 

" They knew not sorrow, cast their lives away 

In all their powerful promise of the spring. 

They saw not autumn, thus were doubly blest ; 

They never lost their faculties," we sing. 

Warming our withered hands ; " Perhaps it's for the 

best. 
Their loss was cruel, or shall we say their gain, 
Yet it's the country's glory, and its pain." 
And thus eternally old age shall sit 
Mouthing youth's sorrows for its benefit. 
Why can't the old keep quiet, and sit and sigh? 
Or, failing that, why can't they fail and die? 

Osbert Sitwell 



pj Before Action 

I SIT beside the brazier's glow, 
And, drowsing in the heat, 
I dream of daffodils that blow 
And lambs that frisk and bleat — 

Black lambs that frolic in the snow 
Among the daffodils. 
In a far orchard that I know 
Beneath the Malvern hills. 

145 



THE BOOK OF 

Next year the daffodils will blow, 
And lambs will frisk and bleat; 
But I'll not feel the brazier's glow, 
Nor any cold or heat . . . 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 



P4 The Iron Music 

THE French guns roll continuously 
And our guns, heavy, slow; 
Along the Ancre, sinuously. 
The transport wagons go, 
And the dust is on the thistles 
And the larks sing up on high . . . 
But I see the Golden Valley 
Down by Tint em on the Wye. 

For it's just nine weeks last Sunday 

Since we took the Chepstow train, 

And I'm wondering if one day 

We shall do the like again; 

For the four-point-two's come screaming 

Thro' the sausages on high; 

So there's little use in dreaming 

How we walked above the Wye. 

Dust and corpses in the thistles 

Where the gas shells burst like snow, 

And the shrapnel screams and whistles 

On the Becourt road below. 

And the High Wood bursts and bristles 

146 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Where the mine-clouds foul the sky . . . 
But I'm with you up at Wyndcroft, 
Over Tintcrn on the Wye. 

Ford Madox Hueffer 



PS To the Poet Before Battle 

NOW, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes, 
Thy lovely things must all be laid away; 
And thou, as others, must face the riven day 
Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums 
Or bugles' strident cry. When mere noise numbs 
The sense of being, the sick soul doth sway, 
Remember thy great craft's honour, that they may say 
Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs 
Of praise the little versemen joyed to take 
Shall be forgotten ; then they must know we are 
For all our skill in words, equal in might 
And strong of mettle as those we honoured. Make 
The name of poet terrible in just war. 
And like a crown of honour upon the fight. 

Ivor Gurney. 



p6 The Fear 

I DO not fear to die 
'Neath the open sky, 
To meet death in the fight 
Face to face, upright. 

147 



THE BOOK OF 

But when at last we creep 
Into a hole to sleep, 
1 tremble, cold with dread, 
Lest I wake up dead. 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

p/ The Question 

I WONDER if the old cow died or not, 
Gey bad she was the night I left, and sick. 
Dick reckoned she would mend. He knows a lot - 
At least he fancies so himself, does Dick. 

Dick knows a lot. But maybe I did wrong 
To leave the cow to him, and come away. 
Over and over like a silly song 
These words keep humming in my head all day. 

And all I think of, as I face the foe 
And take my lucky chance of being shot. 
Is this — that if I'm hit, I'll never know- 
Till Doomsday if the old cow died or not. 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

p8 In the Trenches 



NOT that we are weary, 
Not that we fear, 
Not that we are lonely 
Though never alone — 
148 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Not these, not these destroy us; 
But that each rush and crash 
Of mortar and shell, 
Each cruel bitter shriek of bullet 
That tears the wind like a blade, 
Each wound on the breast of earth, 
Of Demeter, our Mother, 
Wounds us also, 
Severs and rends the fine fabric 
Of the wings of our frail souls, 
Scatters into dust the bright wings 
Of Psyche! 

II 
Impotent, 

How impotent is all this clamour, 
This destruction and contest . . . 

Night after night comes the moon 

Haughty and perfect; 

Night after night the Pleiades sing 

And Orion swings his belt across the sky. 

Night after night the frost 

Crumbles the hard earth. 

Soon the spring will drop flowers 

And patient, creeping stalk and leaf 

Along these barren lines 

Where the huge rats scuttle 

And the hawk shrieks to the carrion crow. 

Can you stay them with your noise? 
Then kill winter with your cannon, 

149 



THE BOOK OF 

Hold back Orion with your bayonets 

And crush the spring leaf with your armies ! 

Richard Aldington 



gp Dreamers 

SOLDIERS are citizens of death's grey land, 
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. 
In the great hour of destiny they stand, 

Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. 
Soldiers are sworn to action ; they must win 

Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. 
Soldiers are dreamers ; when the guns begin 

They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. 

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats. 
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, 

Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, 
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain 

Bank-holidays, and picture-shows, and spats. 
And going to the office in the train. 

Siegfried Sassoon 



100 Dusk 

To J. C. 

THERE where the brown leaves fall 
from elm and chestnut and plane-tree 
here where the brown leaves drift 
along the paths to the lake 
150 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

where the waterfowl breast the waves 
that are ridged by the wind, — 

you spoke of your art and life, 

of men you had known who betrayed you, 

men who fell short of friendship 

and women who fell short of love; 

but abiding beyond them, your art 

held you to life, transformed it, became it, 

and so you were free. 

And I told you of all my weakness, — 

my growing strength to resist 

the appeal to my heart and eyes 

of sorrowful, beautiful things; 

and the strength of this outer husk 

I had permitted to grow and protect me 

was its pitiful measure. 

You said : There are cracks in the husk. 

It grew to your measure perhaps once ; 

but you are now breaking through it, and soon 

it will fall apart and away from you. 

Like a tree content with its fate, 

you would not have known it was there 

if it had grown to remain. 

The cold wind blew the brown leaves 
on to the lovers beneath, 
who crept closer together for warmth 
and closer still for love. 

151 



THE BOOK OF 

The peacocks perched in the branches 
hawked their harsh cry at the golden 
round moon that loomed over the tree-tops. 

And the sound of our feet on the gravel 

for a time was answer enough 

to the broken mesh of our thoughts. 

I said: I have wife and children, 

a girl and a boy : I love them ; 

the gold of their hair is all the gold 

of my thoughts; the blue of their eyes 

is all the purity of my vision ; 

the rhythm of their life is more to be watched 

than the cadences of my poems. 

And you asked me: 

Have you taken refuge behind them? 

Do you not fear to lose your life 

in saving it for them? 

Be brave ! Be brave ! The waters are deep, 

the waves run high ; but you are a swimmer : 

strike out ! 



The cold wind blew the brown leaves 
deeper and deeper into the dusk : 
the peacocks had hushed their cries; 
the moon had turned her gold into silver, 
and between the black lace of two trees 
one star shone clearly. 
152 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

O night! 

have I deserved your beauty? 

F. S. Flint 



1 01 The Birds Flit Unafraid 

From " Battle of the Marne " 

4 4nr^HE birds flit unafraid 

X Through the great cannonade; 
And, O Cannoniers, though ill 
The forests take your skill 
And as by winter nipp'd 
Scatter leaves bullet-stript 
• Down the shell-ravaged road — 
Still, in its dark abode, 
In the branches of God, 
The Soul sings on alone; 
You may blow the dead from their crypt — 
Not the dream from its throne ! " 

Herbert Trench 



102 A Mystic as Soldier 

I LIVED my days apart, 
Dreaming fair songs for God, 
By the glory in my heart 
Covered and crowned and shod. 

Now God is in the strife, 
And I must seek Him there, 

153 



' THE BOOK OF 

Where death outnumbers life, 
And fury smites the air. 

I walk the secret way 
With anger in my brain. 
O music through my clay, 
When will you sound again? 

Siegfried Sassoon 



10^ Terror 



THOSE of the earth envy us, 
Envy our beauty and frail strength 
Those of the wind and the moon 
Envy our pain. 

II 

For as a doe that has never borne child 
We w^ere swift to fly from terror; 
And as fragile edged steel 
We turned, we pierced, we endured. 



We have known terror : 
The terror of the wind and silent shadows, 
The terror of great heights, 
The terror of the worm. 
The terror of thunder and fire, 
The terror of water and slime. 
The terror of horror and fear, 
154 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The terror of desire and pain — 
The terror of apathy. 

IV 

As a beast, as an arrow of pine, 

Terror cleft us, 

Tore us in envy away, 

So that for month upon month 

Pain wore us. hope left us, despair clutched us. 

For they of the earth envied us, 

Envied our beauty and strength. 

v 
Yet because, though we faltered and wept. 
We held fast, clung close to our love, 
Scorned hate even as they scorned us, 
Some god has lightened our lives. 
Given back the cool mouth of song 
And the hands that blossom of fire. 
Given, too, the mouth crushed like a flower 
Which unpetals in marvellous ways, 
The limbs that are hard and straight 
With maidenly thews and blood, 
Given these so that day is aflame 
And night shot golden with shafts. 



We have suffered, we have bled, 
And those of the wind and the moon 
Envy our pain, the pain of the terror. 
The delight no terror could slay. 

Richard Aldington 

155 



THE BOOK OF 



104 Into Battle 

THE naked earth is warm with spring-, 
And with green grass and bursting trees 
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, 

And quivers in the sunny breeze ; 
And Hfe is colour and warmth and light, 

And a striving evermore for these ; 
And he is dead who will not fight ; 
And who dies fighting has increase. 

The fighting man shall from the sun 

Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth; 

Speed with the light-foot winds to run 
And with the trees to newer birth ; 

And find, when fighting shall be done. 
Great rest, and fullness after dearth. 

All the bright company of Heaven 

Hold him in their high comradeship, 
The Dog-Star, and the Sisters Seven. 

Orion's Belt and sworded hip. 
The woodland trees that stand together. 

They stand to him each one a friend ; 
They gently speak in the windy weather; 

They guide to valley and ridge's end. 

The kestrel hovering by day, 

And the little owls that call by night, 

Bid him be swift and keen as they, 
As keen of ear, as swift of sight. 
156 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The blackbird sings to him, " Brother, brother, 
If this be the last song you shall sing, 

Sing well, for you may not sing another; 
Brother, sing.'' 

In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours, 

Before the brazen frenzy starts. 
The horses show him nobler powers 

O patient eyes, courageous hearts ! 

And when the burning moment breaks. 
And all things else are out of mind. 

And only joy of battle takes 

Him by the throat, and makes him blind, 

Through joy and blindness he shall know 

Not caring much to know, that still 
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so 

That it be not the Destined Will. 

The thundering line of battle stands. 
And in the air death moans and sings; 

But Day shall clasp him with strong hands. 
And Night shall fold him in soft wings. 

Julian Grenfell 



105 The Assault Heroic 

DOWN in the mud I lay. 
Tired out by my long day 
Of five damned days and nights. 



157 



THE BOOK OF 

Five sleepless days and nights . . 
Dream-snatched, and set me where 
The dungeon of Despair 
Looms over Desolate Sea, 
Frowning and threatening me 
With aspect high and steep — 
A most malignant keep. 
My foes that lay within 
Shouted and made a din, 
Hooted and grinned and cried: 
"To-day we've killed your pride: 
To-day your ardour ends. 
We've murdered all your friends: 
We've undermined by stealth 
Your happiness and your health. 
We've taken away your hope; 
Now you may droop and mope 
To misery and to Death." 
But with my spear of Faith, 
Stout as an oaken rafter, 
With my round shield of laughter, 
With my sharp, tongue-like sword 
That speaks a bitter word. 
I stood beneath the wall 
And there defied them all. 
The stones they cast I caught 
And alchemized with thought 
Into such lumps of gold 
As dreaming misers hold. 
The boiling oil they threw 
Fell in a shower of dew, 
Refreshing me; the spears 

58 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Flew harmless by my ears, 
Struck quivering in the sod; 
There, like the prophet's rod, 
Put leaves out, took firm root, 
And bore me instant fruit. 
My foes were all astounded, 
Dumbstricken and confounded. 
Gaping in a long row ; 
They dared not thrust nor throw. 
Thus, then, I climbed a steep 
Buttress and won the keep, 
And laughed and proudly blew 
My horn, "Stand to! Stand to! 
Wake up, sir! Here's a new 
Attack ! Stand to ! Stand to ! " 

Robert Graves 



1 06 The Assault 

THE beating of the guns grows louder. 
" Not long, boys, now." 
My heart burns whiter, fearfuller, prouder. 
Hurricanes grow 
As guns redouble their fire. 
Through the shaken periscope peeping, 
I glimpse their wire: 

Black earth, fountains of earth rise, leaping. 
Spouting like shocks of meeting waves. 
Death's fountains are playing. 
Shells like shrieking birds rush over ; 

159 



THE BOOK OF 

Crash and din rises higher. 

A stream of lead raves 

Over us from the left . . . (we safe under cover!) 

Crash ! Reverberation ! Crash ! 

Acrid smoke billowing. Flash upon flash. 

Black smoke drifting. The German line 

Vanishes in confusion, smoke. Cries, and cry 

Of our men, " Gah, ycr swine! 

Ye' re for it " die 

In a hurricane of shell. 

One cry : 

"We're cornin' soon! look out!" 

There is opened hell 

Over there : fragments fly. 

Rifles and bits of men whirled at the sky : 

Dust, smoke, thunder ! A sudden bout 

Of machine guns chattering . . . 

And redoubled battering. 

As if in fury at their daring! . . . 

No good staring. 

Time soon now . . . home . . . house on a sunny 

hill . . . 
Gone like a flickered page: 
Time soon now . . . zero . . . will engage . . . 

A sudden thrill — 
" Fix bayonets ! " 
Gods ! we have our fill 
Of fear, hysteria, exultation, rage, 
1 60 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Rage- to kill. 

My heart burns hot, whiter and whiter, 

Contracts tighter and tighter, 

Until I stifle with the will 

Long forged, now used 

(Though utterly strained) — 

pounding heart. 
Baffled, confused, 

Heart panged, head singing, dizzily pained — 
To do my part. 

Blindness a moment. Sick. 

There the men are ! 

Bayonets ready : click ! 

Time goes quick ; 

A stumbled prayer . . . somehow a blazing star 

In a blue night . . . where? 

Again prayer. 

The tongue trips. Start: 

How's time ? Soon now. Two minutes or less. 

The gun's fury mounting higher . . . 

Their utmost. I lift a silent hand. Unseen I bless 

Those hearts will follow me. 

And beautifully. 

Now beautifully my will grips. 

Soul calm and round and filmed and white ! 

A shout : " Men, no such order as retire ! " 

1 nod. 

The whistle's 'twixt my lips ... 
I catch 
A wan, worn smile at me. 

i6i 



THE BOOK OF 

Dear men ! 

The pale wrist-watch . . . 

The quiet hand ticks on amid the din. 

The guns again 

Rise to a last fury, to a rage, a lust : 

Kill! Pound! Kill! Pound! Pound! 

Now comes the thrust ! 

My part . . . dizziness . . . will . . . but trust 

These men. The great guns rise ; 

Their fury seems to burst the earth and skies ! 

They lift. 

Gather, heart, all thoughts that drift; 

Be steel, soul, 

Compress thyself 

Into a round, bright whole. 

I cannot speak. 

Time. Time ! 

I hear my whistle shriek. 
Between teeth set ; 
I fling an arm up. 
Scramble up the grime 
Over the parapet ! 
I'm up. Go on. 
Something meets us. 

Head down into the storm that greets us. 
A wail. 

Lights. Blurr. 
Gone. 
162 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

On, on. Lead. Lead. Hail. 

Spatter. Whirr ! Whirr ! 

■' Toward that patch of brown; 

Direction left." Bullets a stream. 

Devouring thought crying in a dream. 

Men, crumpled, going down . , . 

(To on. Go. 

Deafness Numbness The loudening tornado 

Bullets Mud. Stumbling and skating. 

My voice's strangled shout: 

"Steady pace, boys!" 

The still light: gladness. 

"Look, sir. Look out!" 

Ha ! ha ! Bunched figures waiting. 

Revolver levelled quick ! 

Flick ! Flick ! 

Red as blood. 

Germans. Germans. 

Good ! O good ! 

Cool madness. 

Robert Nichols 



10/ To Any Dead Officer 

WELL, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd 
say, 
Because I'd like to know that you're all right. 
Tell me, have you found everlasting day, 

Or been sucked in by everlasting night? 
For when I shut my eyes your face shows pain ; 
I hear you make some cheery old remark — 

163 



THE BOOK OF 

I can rebuild you in my brain, 
Though you've gone out patrolHng in the dark. 

You hated tours of trenches ; you were proud 

Of nothing more than having good years to spend; 
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd 

Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend. 
That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire: 

No earthly chance can send you crawling back : 
You've finished with machine-gun fire — 

Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack. 

Somehow I always thought you'd get done in. 

Because you were so desperate keen to live: 
You were all out to try and save your skin, 

Well knowing how much the world had got to give. 
You joked at shells and talked the usual " shop," 

Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: 
With "Jesus Christ! when will it stop?" 

Three years . . . It's Hell unless we break their line. 

So when they told me you'd been left for dead 

I wouldn't believe them, feeling it must be true. 
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said 

"Wounded and missing" — (That's the thing to do 
When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow, 

With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, 
Moaning for water till they know 

It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!) 

9fC ?{£ ^ ^ «fC 

Good-bye, old lad ! Remember me to God, 
And tell Him that our Politicians swear 
164 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod 

Under the Heel of England . . . Are you there? . . . 
Yes . . . and the War won't end for at least two years ; 
But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with 
tears, 
Staring into the dark. Cheero ! 
'I wish they'd killed you in a decent show. 

Siegfried Sassoon 



io8 By the Wood 

HOW still the day is, and the air how bright ! 
A thrush sings and is silent in the wood; 
The hillside sleeps dizzy with heat and light; 
A rhythmic murmur fills the quietude ; 
A woodpecker prolongs his leisured flight. 
Rising and falling on the solitude. 

But there are those who far from yon wood lie, 
Buried within the trench where all were found, 
A weight of mould oppresses every eye, 
Within that cabin close their limbs are bound. 
And there they rot amid the long, profound, 
Disastrous silence of grey earth and sky. 

These once, too. rested where now rests but one, 
Who scarce can lift his panged and heavy head, 
Who drinks in grief the hot light of the sun, 
Whose eyes watch dully the green branches spread, 
Who feels his currents ever slowlier run, 
Whose lips repeat a silent ". . . Dead ! all dead ! " 

165 



THE BOOK OF 

youths to come shall drink air warm and bright, 
Shall hear the bird cry in the sunny wood, 

All my Young England fell to-day in fight: 

That bird, that wood, was ransomed by our blood! 

1 pray you when the drum rolls let your mood 
Be worthy of our deaths and your delight. 

Robert Nichols 



I op Songs from an Evil Wood 

I 

THERE is no wrath in the stars. 
They do not rage in the sky; 
I look from the evil wood 

And find myself wondering why. 

Why do they not scream out 

And grapple star against star, 
Seeking for blood in the wood 

As all things round me are? 

They do not glare like the sky 
Or flash like the deeps of the wood; 

But they shine softly on 
In their sacred solitude. 

To their high, happy haunts 

Silence from us has flown, 
She whom we loved of old 

And know it now she is gone. 
1 66 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

When will she come again, 

Though for one second only? 

She whom we loved is gone 
And the whole world is lonely. 



II 

Somewhere lost in the haze 

The sun goes down in the cold, 
And birds in this evil wood 

Chirrup home as of old; 

Chirrup, stir, and are still 

On the high twigs frozen and thin. 

There is no more noise of them now, 
And the long night sets in. 

Of all the wonderful things 

That I have seen in the wood, 
I marvel most at the birds 

And their wonderful quietude. 

For a giant smites with his club 

All day the tops of the hill, 
Sometimes he rests at night, 

Oftener he beats them still. 

And a dwarf with a grim black mane 

Raps with repeated rage 
All night in the valley below 

On the wooden walls of his cage. 

167 



THE BOOK OF 

And the elder giants come 

Sometimes, tramping from far 

Through the weird and flickering light 
Made by an earthly star. 



And the giant with his club, 

And the dwarf with rage in his breath, 
And the elder giants from far, 

They are all the children of Death. 



They are all abroad to-night 

And are breaking the hills with their brood, 
And the birds are all asleep 

Even in Plug Street Wood! 



Ill 

The great guns of England, they listen mile on mile 
To the boasts of a broken War-Lord ; they lift their 
throats and smile ; 
But the old woods are fallen 
For a while. 



The old woods are fallen; yet will they come again. 
They will come back some springtime with the warm 
winds and the rain 
For Nature guardeth her children 

Never in vain. 
i68 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They will come back some season ; it may be a hundred 

years; 
It is all one to Nature with the centuries that are hers; 
She shall bring back her children 
And dry all their tears. 

Bltt the tears of a would-be War-Lord shall never 

cease to flow, 
He shall weep for the poisoned armies whenever the 
gas-winds blow, 
He shall always weep for his widows, 
And all Hell shall know. 

The tears of a pitiless Kaiser shallow they'll flow 

and wide, 
Wide as the desolation made by his silly pride 
When he slaughtered a little people 
To stab France in her side. 

Over the ragged cinders they shall flow on and on 
With the listless falling of streams that find not ob- 
livion, 
For ages and ages of years 
Till the last star is gone. 



IV 



I met with Death in his country, 
With his scythe and his hollow eye, 

Walking the roads of Belgium. 
I looked and he passed me by. 



169 



THE BOOK OF 

Since he passed me by in Plug Street, 

In the wood of the evil name, 
I shall not now lie with the heroes, 

I shall not fare their fame, 

I shall never be as they are, 

A name in the lands of the Free, 
Since I looked on Death in Flanders 

And he did not look at me. 

Lord Dunsany 



1 10 Ifs a Queer Time 



I 



T'S hard to know if you're alive or dead 
When steel and fire go roaring through your head. 



One moment you'll be crouching at your gun 
Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun : 
The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast — 
No time to think — leave all — and off you go . . . 
To Treasure Island where the spice winds blow. 
To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime? 
Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West ! 
It's a queer time. 

You're charging madly at them yelling " Fag ! " 
When somehow something gives and your feet drag. 
You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain 
And find . . . you're digging tunnels through the hay 
In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day. 
Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb ! 
170 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

You're back in the old sailor suit again. 
It's a queer time. 

Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out — 
A great roar — the trench shakes and falls about — 
You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then . . . hullo ! 
Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench, 
Hanky to nose — that lyddite makes a stench — 
Getting her pinafore all over grime. 
Funny ! because she died ten years ago ! 
It's a queer time. 

The trouble is, things happen much too quick; 
Up jump the Boches, rifles thump and click, 
You stagger, and the whole scene fades away : 
Even good Christians don't like passing straight 
From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate 
To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime 
Of golden harps . . . and . . . I'm not well to-day . . . 
It's a queer time. 

Robert Graves 



III Back 

THEY ask me where I've been, 
And what I've done and seen. 
But what can I reply 
Who know it wasn't I, 
But some one just like me, 
Who went across the sea 
And with my head and hands 



THE BOOK OF 

Killed men in foreign lands . . . 
Though I must bear the blame 
Because he bore my name. 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 



112 The Return 

HE went, and he was gay to go : 
And I smiled on him as he went. 
My son — 'twas well he couldn't know 
My darkest dread, nor what it meant — 

Just what it meant to smile and smile 
And let my son go cheerily — 
My son . . . and wondering all the while 
What stranger would come back to me. 

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 



113 To an Officer in Regent Street 

LIKE some lean ghost who for a little space 
Looks on the world again, and the clear skies, 
Or mariner that from the sea doth rise 
In vain, to find another in his place. 
You walk with shades of death on your brown face 
And look upon the street with dead men's eyes. 

Fresh women throng beside you in the street 
And painted women; but they seek in vain 
172 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

To catch those haunted eyes, or turn again 
From their slow course toward waiting death 3^our feet. 
You must pass lonely, on whose brow there meet 
Abel's sharp anguish, and the curse of Cain. 

Lucy Hazvkins 



114 To Germany 

YOU are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, 
And no man claimed the conquest of your land. 
But, gropers both through fields of thought confined. 
We stumble and we do not understand. 
You only saw your future bigly planned. 
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind. 
And in each other's dearest ways we stand, 
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind. 

When it is peace, then we may view again 
With new-won eyes each other's truer form, 
And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm, 
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, 
When it is peace. But, until peace the storm, 
The darkness, and the thunder and the rain. 

Charles Hamilton Sorlev 



11^ The Rainbozv 



I 



WATCH the white dawn gleam, 
To the thunder of guns. 
I hear the hot shells scream 

173 



THE BOOK OF 

Through skies as sweet as a dream 
Where the silver dawn-break runs. 

And stabbing of Hght 

Scorches the virginal white. 
But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill. 
And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still. 

From death that hurtles by 

I crouch in the trench day-long, 
But up to a cloudless sky 
From the ground where our dead men lie 

A brown lark soars in song. 
Through the tortured air. 
Rent by shrapnel's flare. 
Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill 
And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still. 

Where the parapet is low 
And level with the eye 
Poppies and cornflowers grow 
And the corn sways to and fro 
In a pattern against the sky. 
The gold stalks hide 
Bodies of men who died 
Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to 

kill. 
I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still. 

When night falls dark we creep 

In silence to our dead. 
We dig a few feet deep 
And leave them there to sleep — 
174 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

But blood at night is red, 
Yea, even at night. 
And a dead man's face is white. 
And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill, 
And I look at the stars — for the stars are beautiful 
still. 

Leslie Co ids on 



it6 Discharged — Totally Disabled 

SO death was cheated of you! Here you lie 
In your own place beside me : you did not die ! 
I must repeat it, learn this truth by heart: 
You did not die ! You did not die ! No part 
Of you is dead! O, sleep, my darling, sleep; 
You are at home, you must not hear me weep. 
When I have learned my lesson I shall not cry — 
You did not die ! You did not, did not die ! 
I will not gull myself. I'll hold the light 
Closer, that I may see each ugly trace 
Death made in missing you : he clawed your face 
Most hideously of all, because he knew 
I, his foe, loved its beauty; blew 
Blood in your eyes, seared the lids black and bare, 
Branded your brows — my blessing rested there — 
Then as a treacherous coward, beaten, afraid. 
Lunges to mark his conqueror, he laid 
His twisted seal upon your lips and fled, 
Harried by love and me ! 

O piteous head ! 
O bloodshot, staring eyes ! O branded brow, 

175 



THE BOOK OF 

O tortured lips, how should I know you now? 

No feature is the same, no look, no sign 

Of what I knew is left to prove you mine. 

You cannot smile ! That was death's ugliest blow ! 

You cannot smile ! The lips I used to know 

Smiled in their sleep for me; they laughed all day 

For every changing thought a different way 

Of smiling for my joy, but they smiled best 

In sleep, against my heart, kissed into rest. 

And now you cannot smile, all hacked awry, 

warm, gay lips — and yet you did not die ! 

Beaten, death ! You are beaten ! Though I see 
This mask of him you have returned to me, 
Though every wound gapes by this flickering light, 

1 have another lamp ! Another sight ! 
His spirit lives, and all his beauty lives ! 
You cannot pilfer in my soul ! Love gives 
His gift immortally ! Not time's decay, 
Nor violence, nor thou can take away 
Beauty made mine by love ! Even now I find 
His living beauty flaming in my mind. 
Burning out all your scars, old foe, and here, 
Here on the pillow smiles serenely clear 

His own familiar face. The mask's a lie ! 
Nothing of him is dead ! He cannot die. 

Irene Rutherford McLeod 



176 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



/// To a Bull-Dog 

{IV. H. S., Capt. [Acting Major] R. F. A.; killed 
April 12, ipT/) 

WE shan't see Willy any more, Mamie, 
He won't be coming any more: 
He came back once and again and again, 
But he won't get leave any more. 

We looked from the window and there was his cab, 

And we ran downstairs like a streak, 
And he said, *' Hullo, you bad dog," and you crouched 
to the floor, 

Paralysed to hear him speak, 

And then let fly at his face and his chest 

Till I had to hold you down. 
While he took ofif his cap and his gloves and his coat, 

And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne. 

We went upstairs to the studio, 

The three of us, just as of old. 
And you lay down and I sat and talked to him 

As round the room he strolled. 



Here in the room where, years ago 

Before the old life stopped. 
He worked all day with his slippers and his pipe, 

He would pick up the threads he'd dropped, 

177 



THE BOOK OF 

Fondling all the drawings he had left behind, 

Glad to find them all still the same, 
And opening the cupboards to look at his belongings 

. . . Every time he came. 

But now I know what a dog doesn't know. 

Though you'll thrust your head on my knee. 
And try to draw me from the absent-mindedness 

That you find so dull in me. 

And all your life you will never know 
What I wouldn't tell you even if I could, 

That the last time we waved him away 
Willy went for good. 

But sometimes as you lie on the hearthrug 

Sleeping in the warmith of the stove. 
Even through your muddled old canine brain 

Shapes from the past may rove. 

You'll scarcely remember, even in a dream, 
How we brought home a silly little pup. 

With a big square head and little crooked legs 
That could scarcely bear him up, 

But your tail will tap at the memory 

Of a man whose friend you were, 
Who was always kind though he called you a naughty 
dog 

When he found you on his chair ; 

178 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Who'd make you face a reproving finger 

And solemnly lecture you 
Till your head hung downwards and you looked very 
sheepish 

And you'll dream of your triumphs too, 

'Of summer evening chases in the garden 

When you dodged us all about with a bone : 
We were three boys, and you were the cleverest, 
But now we're two alone. 

When summer comes again. 

And the long sunsets fade. 
We shall have to go on playing the feeble game for 
two 

That since the war we've played. 

And though you run expectant as you always do 

To the uniforms we meet, 
You'll never find Willy among all the soldiers 

In even the longest street. 

Nor in any crowd; yet, strange and bitter thought. 

Even now were the old words said. 
If I tried the old trick and said 'Where's Willy?' 

You would quiver and lift your head. 

And your brown eyes would look to ask if I was serious, 

And wait for the word to spring. 
Sleep undisturbed: I shan't say that again. 

You innocent old thing. 

179 



THE BOOK OF 

I must sit, not speaking, on the sofa, 

While you lie asleep on the floor ; 
For he's suffered a thing that dogs couldn't dream of, 

And he won't be coming here any more. 

/. C. Squire 



ii8 When Ifs Over 

ii'W'OUNG soldier, what will you be 

X When it's all over?" 
" I shall get out and across the sea, 
Where land's cheap and a man can thrive. 
I shall make money. Perhaps I'll wive 
In a place where there's room for a family, 
I'm a bit of a rover." 

" Young soldier, what will you be 

At the last ' Dismiss ' ? " 
" Bucked to get back to old Leicester Square, 
Where there's good champagne and a glad winking 
And no more ' Veery Lights ' damnably blinking 
Their weary, dreary, white-eyed stare. 

I'll be out of this." 

" Young soldier, what will you be 

When they sign the peace?" 
" Blowed if I know ; perhaps I shall stick it. 
The job's all right if you take it steady. 
After all, somebody's got to be ready, 
And tons of the blighters '11 get their ticket. 

Wars don't cease." 

i8o 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

" Young soldier, what will you be 

At the day's end? " 
" Tired's what I'll be. I shall lie on the beach 
Of a shore where the rippling waves just sigh, 
And listen and dream and sleep and lie 
Forgetting what I've had to learn and teach 

And attack and defend." 

" Young soldier, what will you be 

When you're next a-bed? " 
" God knows what ; but it doesn't matter, 
For whenever I think, I always remember 
The Belgians massacred that September, 
And England's pledge — and the rest seems chatter. 

What if I am dead? " 

" Young soldier, what will you be 

When it's all done? '' 
" I shall come back and live alone 
On an English farm in the Sussex Weald, 
Where the wounds in my mind will be slowly sealed, 
And the graves in my heart will be overgrown; 

And I'll sit in the sun." 

** Young soldier, what will you be 

At the ' Last Post ' ? " 
" Cold, cold in the tender earth, 
A cold body in foreign soil ; 
But a happy spirit fate can't spoil. 
And an extra note in the blackbird's mirth 
From a khaki ghost." 

Max Plowman 
i8i 



THE BOOK OF 



IIQ In Flanders Fields 

IN Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place, and in the sky, 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly. 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the dead; short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe ! 
To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch ; be yours to hold it high ! 

If ye break faith with us who die. 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields. 

John McCrae 



T20 The Old Houses of Flanders 

THE old houses of Flanders, 
They watch by the high cathedrals; 
They overtop the high town-halls; 
They have eyes, mournful, tolerant and sardonic, for 
the ways of men 
182 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

In the high, white tiled gables, 

The rain and the night have settled down on Flanders; 

It is all wet darkness; you can see nothing. 

Then those old eyes, mournful, tolerant and sardonic, 

Look at great, sudden, red lights, 

Look upon the shades of the cathedrals; 

And the golden rods of the illuminated rain, 

For a second . . . 

And those old eyes. 

\^ery old eyes that have watched the ways of men for 
many generations, 

Close for ever. 

The high, white shoulders of the gables 

Slouch together for a consultation, 

Slant drunkenly over in the lea of the flaming cathe- 
drals. 

They are no more, the old houses of Flanders. 

Ford Madox Hueffer 



121 Pic-nic 

WE lay and ate sweet hurt-berries 
In the bracken of Hurt Wood. 
Like a quire of singers singing low 
The dark pines stood. 

Behind us climbed the Surrey hills, 
Wild, wild in greenery: 

183 



THE BOOK OF 

At our feet the downs of Sussex broke 
To an unseen sea. 

And life was bound in a still ring 
Drowsy, and quiet and sweet . . . 

When heavily up the south-east wind 
The great guns beat. 

We did not wince, we did not weep, 

We did not curse or pray; 
We drowsily heard, and some one said 

" They sound clear to-day." 

We did not shake with pity and pain, 

Or sicken and blanch white. 
We said: "If the wind's from over there 

There'll be rain to-night." 

Once pity we knew, and rage we knew, 

And pain we knew, too well, 
As we stared and peered dizzily 

Through the gates of Hell. 

But now Hell's gates are an old tale; 

Remote the anguish seems ; 
The guns are muffled and far away, 

Dreams within dreams. 

And far and far are Flanders mud. 

And the pain of Picardy; 
And the blood that runs there runs beyond 

The wide waste sea. 
184 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

We are shut about by guarding walls: 
(We have built them lest we run 

Mad from dreaming of naked fear 
And of black things done.) 

We are ringed all round by guarding walls, 

So high, they shut the view, 
Not all the guns that shatter the world 

Can quite break through. 

Oh guns of France, oh guns of France. 

Be still, you crash in vain . . . 
Heavily up the south wind throb 

Dull dreams of pain . . . 

Be still, be still, south wind, lest your 
Blowing should bring the rain ... 

We'll lie very quiet on Hurt hill, 
And sleep once again. 

Oh, we'll lie quite still, nor listen nor look, 
While the earth's bounds reel and shake, 

Lest, battered too long, our walls and we 
Should break . . . should break . . . 

Rose Macaulay 



122 The Dying Patriot 

DAY breaks on England down the Kentish hills. 
Singing in the silence of the meadow- footing 
rills, 
Day of my dreams, O day ! 

185 



THE BOOK OF 

I saw them march from Dover, long ago, 
With a silver cross before them, singing low, 
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas 
break in foam, 
Augustine with his feet of snow. 

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town, 

— Beauty she was statue cold — there's blood upon 

her gown : 
Noon of my dreams, O noon ! 

Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago. 
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow, 
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers 
there. 
And the streets where the great men go. 

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales. 

When the first star shivers and the last waves pales: 

O evening dreams ! 

There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, 
Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow. 

And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead 
Sway when the long winds blow. 

Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar 
Your children of the morning are clamorous for war: 
Fire in the night, O dreams ! 

Though she send you as she sent you, long ago. 
South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow, 
West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I 
must go 
i86 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young 
Star-captains glow. 

James Elroy Flecker 



12^ Lepanto 

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun. 
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they 

run; 
There is laughter like the fountains in the face of all 

men feared, 
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, 
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips. 
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his 

ships. 
They have dared the white republics up the capes of 

Italy, 
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the 

Sea, 
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and 

loss, 
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about 

the Cross. 
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass ; 
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; 
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish 

gun, 
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in 

the sun. 
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, 

187 



THE BOOK OF 

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince 

has stirred, 
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted 

stall, 
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the 

wall. 
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird 

has sung. 
That once went singing southward when all the world 

was young. 
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, 
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the 

Crusade. 
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, 
Don John of Austria is going to the war, 
Stiff flags staining in the night-blasts cold 
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old gold. 
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums. 
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, 

and he comes. 
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, 
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the 

world, 
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. 
Love-light of Spain — hurrah! 
Death-light of Africa! 
Don John of Austria 
Is riding to the sea. 



Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, 
{Don John of Austria is going to the war) 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's 

knees, 
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas. 
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his 

ease, 
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than 

the trees, 
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent 

to bring 
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing. 
Giants and the Genii, 
Multiplex of wing and eye, 
Whose strong obedience broke the sky 
When Solomon was king. 



They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the 

morn, 
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes 

in scorn 
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells 

of the sea 
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures 

be; 
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea- 
forests curl, 
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the 

pearl ; 
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of 

the ground, — 
They gather and they wonder and give worship to 

Mahound. 

189 



THE BOOK OF 

And he saith, '' Break up the mountains where the 

hermit-folk can hide, 
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint 

abide, 
And chase the Giaours flying night and day. not giving 

rest, 
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the 

west. 
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under 

sun, 
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things 

done, 
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, 

and I know 
The voice that shook our palaces — four hundred years 

ago: 
It is he that saith not ' Kismet ' ; it is he that knows 

not Fate : 
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate ! 
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the 

wager worth. 
Put down your feet upon him. that our peace be on the 

earth." 
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, 
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.) 
Sudden and still — hurrah! 
Bolt from Iberia ! 
Don John of Austria 
Is gone by Alcalar. 

St. Michael's on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the 
north 
190 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) 

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift 

And the sea-folk labor and the red sails lift. 

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of 
stone ; 

The noise is gone through Normandy ; the noise is gone 
alone ; 

The North is full of tangled things and texts and ach- 
ing eyes 

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, 

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty 
room, 

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face 
of doom, 

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, 

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. 

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse 

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, 

Trumpet that sayeth ha ! 
Domino gloria! 

Don John of Austria 

Is shouting to the ships. 

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his 

neck 
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) 
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft 

as sin. 
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs 

creep in. 
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, 
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, 

191 



THE BOOK OF 

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and 

grey 
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from 

the day 
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work. 
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. 
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed — 
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid. 
Gun upon gun, ha ! ha ! 
Gun upon gun, hurrah ! 
Don John of Austria 
Has loosed the cannonade. 



The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, 

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) 

The hidden room in man's house where God sits all 
the year, 

The secret window whence the world looks small and 
very dear. 

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea 

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery ; 

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and 
Castle dark, 

They veil the plumped lions on the galleys of St. Mark ; 

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black- 
bearded chiefs, 

And below the ships are prisons where with multitudi- 
nous griefs, 

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a laboring race 
repines 

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. 
192 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies 

of morning hung 
The stairways of the tallest gods when tyranny was 

young. 
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen 

or fleeing on 
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Baby- 
lon, 
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in 

Hell 
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice 

of his cell, 
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more 

a sign — 
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle line!) 
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop. 
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, 
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, 
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, 
Thronging of the thousands up that labor under sea 
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for 

liberty. 
Vivat Hispania ! 
Domino Gloria! 
Don John of Austria 
Has set his people free ! 

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the 

sheath 
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) 
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in 

Spain, 

193 



THE BOOK OF 

Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in 

vain, 
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles 

back the blade. . . . 
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the 

Crusade. ) 

Gilbert K. Chesterton 



124 I am the Gilly of Christ 

I AM the gilly of Christ. 
The mate of Mary's Son : 
I run the roads at seeding time, 
And when the harvest's done. 

I sleep among the hills. 

The heather is my bed; 

I dip the termon-well for drink, 

And pull the sloe for bread. 

No eye has ever seen me, 
But shepherds hear me pass, 
Singing at fall of even 
Along the shadowed grass. ' 

The beetle is my bellman, 
The meadow-fire my guide. 
The bee and bat my ambling nags 
When I have need to ride. 

All know me only the Stranger, 
Who sits on the Saxon's height; 
194 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

He burned the bacach's little house 
On last Saint Brigid's Night. 

He sups off silver dishes, 
And drinks in a golden horn, 
But he will wake a wiser man 
Upon the Judgment Morn ! 

I am the Gilly of Christ, 
The mate of Mary's Son; 
I run the roads at seeding time. 
And when the harvest's done. 

The seed I sow is lucky, 

The corn I reap is red, 

And whoso sings the Gill's Rann 

Will never cry for bread. 

Seosamh MacCathvihaoil {Joseph Campbell) 



12^ Regmim Caelorum Vim Patitur 

WHEN our five-angled spears, that pierced the 
world 
And drew its life-blood, faint before the wall 
Which hems its secret splendour — when we fall, 
Lance broken, banner furled. 
Before that calm invincible defence 
Whereon our folly hurled 
The piteous armies of intelligence — 
Then, often-times, we know 
How conquering mercy to the battle field 

195 



THE BOOK OF 

Comes through the darkness, freely to bestow 

The prize for which we fought 

Not knowing what we sought, 

And salve the wounds of those who would not yield. 

He loves the valiant foe; he comes not out to meet 

The craven soul made captive of its fear : 

Not these the victories that to him are sweet ! 

But the impetuous soldiery of truth. 

And knighthood of the intellectual quest, 

Who ask not for his ruth 

Nor would desire his rest: 

These are to him most dear, . 

And shall in their surrender yet prevail. 

Yea ! at the end of unrewarded days. 

By swift and secret ways 

As on a sudden moonbeam shining clear. 

Soft through the night shall slide upon their gaze 

The thrice-defended vision of the Grail : 

And when his peace hath triumphed, these shall be 

The flower of his celestial chivalry. 

And did you think, he saith 
As to and fro he goes the trenches through, 
My heart impregnable, that you must bring 
The ballisters of faith 
Their burning bolts to fling. 
And all the cunning intricate device 
Of human wit, 
One little breach to make 
That so you might attain to enter it? 
Nay, on the other side 
196 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Love's undefended postern is set wide: 
But thus it is I woo 
My dearest sons, that an ignoble ease 
Shall never please, 
Nor any smooth and open way entice. 
Armed would I have them come 
Against the mighty bastions of their home; 
Out of high failure win 
Their way within. 

And from my conquering hand their birthright take. 

Evelyn Underhill 



126 Brother Fidelis 

PASSING to Chapel thro' the high cloister'd way, 
Brother Fidelis loitered to survey 
Far, slumberous fields all wrapt in still moonlight 
Laid plain, thro' chiselled windows, to his sight. 

The Brother dropt his hands upon the stone 
Of one low window. Sepia shadows, thrown 
Across the pavement, made the light more clear 
Upon his thoughtful face; no shade was there, 

Tho' Suffering's heavy hand had drawn her lines 
About his mouth ; and near his eyes were signs 
Of long night watchings and of fastings long — 
Wherewith he trained his spirit to be strong. 

Unknown the thoughts, the labour and the pain . . . 
Before his eyes lay but the tender grain 

197 



THE BOOK OF 

Lovingly gathered in that quiet patch 

By one asleep beneath some cottage thatch. 

Beyond the fields lay London. He had been 
There once, toiling for life amid the mean 
Toil of the streets; and then had drawn aside 
From worldly lust, vainglorious days and pride. 

Twas better so; better to serve the Lord 
Continually, than share Him with a horde 
Of other gods. He had gained here, apart. 
With the new name, Fidelis. a new^ heart. 

He stood as still as the carved Virgin Maid 
Above the Chapel door, whose Child w^as laid 
Against her breast. So stood Fidelis there 
As tho' the w^orld were not, nor care on care. 

The Chapel bell clanged from a turret high, 

The Brother's sober Brethren shuffled by, 

Casting strange shapes on the cold pavement's face. 

Fidelis, woken, turned with them for Grace 

Within the narrow door, passing below 
The Mother Maid who smiled to see them go. 
The praising voices died along the grey 
Moonlighted quiet of the cloistered way. 

Gwen Upcott 



198 



MODERN BRITISH VERSP: 



isy Two Carols 



Flores appariienint in terra nostre 

VERY still was all the land, 
Very secret was the hour; 
Darkness as a guard did stand 
When the Rose brought forth her flower — 
Rosa_ sine spina. 

Long the road and hard the pain. 

Chill and lowly was the shed: 
See, upon the straw she's lain — 

Straw^ to make her childing-bed ! 
Virgo et re gin a. 

Cold the welcome, sharp the smart; 

Godhead treads the bitter way. 
Only in the lowly heart 

Is her babe brought forth to-day — 
Genetrix divina. 



II 

Omnis creatura ingemiscii, et parturit usque adhuc. 

SILENCE and darkness ! land and sea 
Await the ending of their pain. 
Qui est in coclis now shall be 
One with the world he made again. 
Dominus tecum ! 

199 



THE BOOK OF 

So the angels say, 
So may it be alway ! 

Poor Earth, that hast in exile long 

Borne alien gods, thy travail cease ! 
Lift up, lift up, the mother's song: 
Rex natiis est, his name is Peace. 
Dominus tecum ! 
So the angels says, 
So may it be alway ! 

Adveniat regnum! in the heart 

Love's childing-bed is made to-night. 
There is he born that heals thy smart, 
Emmanuel, the Light of Light ! 
Dominus tecum! 
So the angels say. 
So may it be alway ! 

Evelyn Under hill 

128 Triptych 

I. — FIRST panel: the hill 

ON a day in Maytime mild 
Mary sat on a hill-top with her child. 
(Overhead in the calm sky's arching 
The curled white clouds went slowly marching . . 
But underneath the blue abyss 
All was stiller than water is 
Leagues under the surface of the sea.) 
And all about her thick and free 
Blossomed the dear familiar flowers. 
200 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Tliere, while her boy played through the hours, 

And the high sun shook gold upon her, 

Mary plaited a garland in his honour 

Who should be the King of Kings; 

And when 'tis done this song she sings. 

As Jesus, tired and happy, rests 

Curled in the hollow of her breasts: 

" In the shadow of my dress, 

Out of the sun 
And his fierce caress, 

Sleep, my son. 

" Soft the air about the hill, 

Scented, sunny, clear, and still ; 

Below in the woods the daffodil 

Nods, and the shy anemone 

Creeps up from the thicket to look on thee, 

And ten thousand daisies meet 

In an ocean of stars about thy feet. 

" Daisies have I strung for thee, 

Darling boy, 
Wee white blossoms that shall be 

Dappled, ah ! rosily 
With thy blood. 
When they nail thee to the wood 
Cleft from out the crooked tree. 

Can it be. 
Daisies innocent and good, 
That ye star black calvary? 

201 



THE BOOK OF 

" Buttercups I make thy crown, 

Darling boy. 
(Lullaby, O lullaby!) 
Son of sorrow, son of joy, 
Pain and Paradise thou art, 
Thou that sighest nestling down 
In my breast, over my heart 

That is a lake 
Where the hidden tear-drops ache 

To be free, 
Till mounting upward for thy sake 

Out they break, 
Down they plash on me and thee. 

" And Heaven in her charity 
Drops seven tears on me and thee. 

" This thy childhood's crown, 

Flower on flower. 
Wear thou in thy lullaby 
Till thou facest the soldiers' frown 

In thine iron hour. 
Till the thorn they crown thee by 

They press down: 
Ah, the sharp points in my heart ! 
Ah, the sword, the sudden smart 
Flaying me as 'twere a flame ! 
Crowned indeed, my son, thou art 
With red flowers of pain and shame ! 

*' Birds and butterflies and trees, 
And the long hush of the breeze 

202 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Shimmering over the silken grass. 
What wouldst thou have more than these? 
In the stall the ox and ass 
Gazed on thee v^ith tender eyes; 
All things love thee ; yet there lies 
Some hid thing in thee breeds fear — 
Brims not falls thy mother's tear. 
Wherefore, baby, must thou go? 
Rose, to be torn in sunder so ? 

Little bonny limbs, little bonny face. 
My lamb, my torment, my disgrace ! 

" O baby, are thine eyelids closed 
Faster than my eyes supposed? 
With foxes must thy bed be maken, 
A beggar with beggars must thou go, 
To be at last forsworn, forsaken? 
And bear alone thy cross also 
Anigh to the foot of a bare hill? 
To hang gibbeted and abhorred, 
For passers-by to wish thee ill ? 
And to thrust against thy will 

Through thy mother's bosom the sharpest sword? 

" O baby, breathing so quietly. 
Have thou mercy upon me ! 

That in thy madness 
On thy lonely journey farest. 
That understandest not nor carest 

For me and my sadness ! 
Woe indeed ! thou dost not know 
Man cometh into this world in sorrow 

203 



THE BOOK OF 

To spend in grief to-night, to-morrow 
In sorrow the third day to go ! 



" O sleep, dear baby, and, heart, sleep ; 

Turn to thy slumber, golden, deep. 

Of present possible happiness. 

Let drop the daisies one by one 

Over his body and his dress; 

Afflicted eyes, see but thy son 

Who sleeps secure from hurt, from harm, 

Clasped to my breast, closed in my arm. 

Who murmurs as the flowers by the faint wind 
shaken, 
And, putting forth sweet, sleepy hands, 
Feels for the kisses he demands . . . 
Slowly, belov'd, dost thou awaken, 
And sure, in heaven there is no sign: 
It is not true that thou shalt be taken, 
Who for ever, for ever art mine, art mine ! " 



Into the west the calm white sun 
Floated and sank. The day was done. 
Mary returned, and as she went. 
Above her, in the firmament, 
The stars, that are the flowers of God, 
Mirrored the flowery earth she trod. 
Thus bore she on her destined child. 
And while she wept, behold ! he smiled. 
And stretched his arms seeking a kiss . . 
Softly she kissed him. and a bliss, 
204 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Deeper than all her human tears. 
Flooded her and put out her fears. 

Oxford, Early Spring, 191 1. 



II. — SECOND AND CENTRE PANEL: THE TOWER 

It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs 
The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous 

woofs. 
The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet, 
Over dome and column, up empty, endless street; 
In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from 

the stem 
Her white showery petals ; none regarded them ; 
The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm; 
Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by 

calm. 

Not a spark in the warren under the giant night. 
Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still 

light : 
There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was 

lit — 
Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it ! 
For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and 

doomed. 
Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men entombed; 
And spreading his hands in blessing, as one soon to 

be dead. 
He put soft enchantment into spare wine and bread. 



205 



THE BOOK OF 

The hearts of the disciples were broken and full of 

tears, 
Because their lord, the spearless, was hedged about 

with spears ; 
And in his face the sickness of departure had spread 

a gloom, 
At leaving his young friends friendless. 
They could not forget the tomb. 
He smiled subduedly, telling, in tones soft as voice 

of the dove, 
The endlessness of sorrow, the eternal solace of love; 
And lifting the earthly tokens, wine and sorrowful 

bread, 
He bade them sup and remember one who lived and 

was dead. 
And they could not restrain their weeping. 

But one rose up to depart, 
Having weakness and hate of weakness raging within 

his heart, 
And bowed to the robed assembly whose eyes gleamed 

wet in the light. 
Judas arose and departed: night went out to the night. 



Then Jesus lifted his voice like a fountain in an ocean 

of tears. 
And comforted his disciples and calmed and allayed 

their fears. 
But Judas wound down the turret, creeping from floor 

to floor, 
And would fly^ but one leaning, weeping, barred bim 

beside the door. 
206 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And he knew her by her ruddy garment and two yet- 
watching men : 

Mary of Seven Evils, Mary Magdalen. 

And he was frighted at her. She sighed : " I dreamed 
him dead. 

We sell the body for silver . . ." 

Then Judas cried out and fled 

Forth into the night !. . . . The moon had begun to set ; 

A drear, deft wind went sifting, setting the dust afret ; 

Into the heart of the city Judas ran on and prayed 

To stern Jehovah lest his deed make him afraid. 

But in the tiny lantern, hanging as if on air, 

The disciples sat unspeaking. Amaze and peace were 

there. 
For his voice, more lovely than song of all earthly 

birds, 
In accents humble and happy spoke slow, consoling 

words. 

Thus Jesus discoursed, and was silent, sitting upright, 

and soon 
Past the casement behind him slanted the sinking moon ; 
And, rising for Olivet, all stared, between love and 

dread. 
Seeing the torrid moon a ruddy halo behind his head. 

Grayshott, July, 19 14. 

III. — THIRD panel: the TREE 

The crooked tree creaked as its loaded bough dipped 
And suddenly jerked up. The rope had slipped, 

207 



THE BOOK OF 

And hideously Judas fell, and all the grass 
Was soused and reddened where he was, 
And the tree creaked its mirth . . . 

Mid the hot sky- 
Appeared immediate dots tiny and high, 
Till downward wound in batlike herds 
Black, monstrous, gawky birds, 
And, narrowing their rustling rings, 
Alit, talons foremost. And with flat wings 
Flapped in the branches, and glared, and croaked and 

croaked. 
While no compassionate human came and cloaked 
The thing that stared up at the giddy day 
With pale blue eyeballs and wry-lipped display 
Of yellow teeth closed on the blue, bit tongue. 
Overhead the light in silence hung, 
And fiercely showed the sweaty, knotted hands 
Clutching the rope about the swollen glands . . . 
And the birds croaked and croaked, evilly eyeing 
The thing so lying. 

Which no commiserate pity came and cloaked, 
But which soaked 
The earth, so that the flies 
Sizzily swung over its winkless eyes. 
And in a crawling, shiny, busy brood 
Blackened the sticky blood. 
And tickled the tongue-choked mouth that sought to 

cry 
Bitterly and beseechingly 
Against the judgment of th' unflinching sky. 



208 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The poor dead, lonely thing had not a shroud 
From that still, frightful glare until a cloud 
Of darkness, flowing like a dye 
Over the edges of the sky, 
Browned and put out the silent sun: 
A benison 

'Of three hours' space. 
And it had power 

To put a shadow into that thing's face, 
And th' invisible birds fell silent by its grace. 

Thus Judas lay in shadow and all was still. 

Then faint light, like water, began again to fill 

The sky, and a whisper — came it from the grass, 

Whispering dry and sparse. 

Or from the air beyond the neighbouring hill? — 

Ebbed, as a spirit on a sigh 

Passing beyond alarm : 

"It is iinished!" 

And there was calm 

Under the empty tree and in the brightening sky. 

Robert Nichols 
Grayshott, July, 19 14. 



I2p Simon the Cyrenean 

"And as they came out they found a man of Cyrene, 
Simon by name; him they compelled to bear his cross." 

kHIS is the tale from first to last ; — 
Outside Jerusalem 

209 



THE BOOK OF 

I saw them lead a prisoner past 

With thorns for diadem. 
Broken and weak and driven fast 

He fell at my garment's hem. 

There stood no other stranger by 

On me they laid his load. 
The Cross whereon he was to die 

I bore along the road, 
I saw him nailed, I heard him cry 

Forsaken of his God. 

Now I am dead as well as he, 

And, marvel strange to tell, 
But him they nailed upon the tree 

Is Lord of Heaven and Hell, 
And judgeth who doth wickedly, 

Rewardeth who doth well. 

He has given to me the beacons four, 

A Cross in the southern sky. 
In token that his Cross I bore 

In his extremity; 
For one I never knew before 

The day he came to die. 

Lucy Lyttelton 



210 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



I JO Birthright 

LORD RAMESES of Egypt sighed 
Because a summer evening passed; 
And little Ariadne cried 

That summer fancy fell at last 
To dust; and young Verona died 
When beauty's hour was overcast. 

Theirs was the bitterness we know 
Because the clouds of hawthorn keep 

So short a state, and kisses go 
To tombs unfathomably deep, 

While Rameses and Romeo 
And little Ariadne sleep. 

John Drinkwater 



iji Harvest 

THOUGH the long seasons seem to separate 
Sower and reaper or deeds dreamed and done, 
Yet when a man reaches the Ivory Gate 
Labour and life and seed and corn are one. 

Because thou art the doer and the deed 

Because thou art the thinker and the thought, 

Because thou art the helper and the need^ 

And the cold doubt that brings all things to nought. 

211 



THE BOOK OF 

Therefore in every gracious form and shape 
The world's dear open secret shalt thou find, 
From the One Beauty there is no escape 
Nor from the sunshine of the Eternal mind. 

The patient labourer, with guesses dim, 
Follows this wisdom to its secret goal. 
He knows all deeds and dreams exist in him, 
And all men's God in every human soul. 

Eva Gore-Booth 



132 The Dark Way 

ROUGHER than death the road I choose 
Yet shall my feet not walk astray, 
Though dark, my way I shall not lose 
For this way is the darkest way. 

Set but a limit to the loss 

And something shall at last abide, 

The blood-stained beams that formed the cross, 

The thorns that crowned the crucified; 

But who shall lose all things in One, 
Shut out from Heaven and the Pit 
Shall lose the darkness and the sun, 
The finite and the infinite; 

And who shall see in one small flower 
The chariots and the thrones of might 
212 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Shall be in peril from that hour 

Of blindness and the endless night; 

And who shall hear in one short name 
Apocalyptic thunders seven 
His heart shall flicker like a flame 
''Twixt Hell's gates and the gates of Heaven. 

For I have seen your body's grace. 
The miracle of the flowering rod, 
And in the beauty of thy face 
The glory of the face of God, 

And I have heard the thunderous roll 
Clamoured from heights of prophecy, 
Your splendid name, and from my soul 
Uprose the clouds of minstrelsy. 

Now I have chosen in the dark 

The desolate way to walk alone. 

Yet strive to keep alive one spark 

Of your known grace and grace unknown; 

And when I leave you lest my love 
Should seal your spirit's ark with clay 
Spread your bright wings, O shining Dove — 
But my way is the darkest way. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 



213 



THE BOOK OF 



jjj The Backward Glance 

THEY set him on a sunny road, 
His face toward the world's expanse: 
" Yonder," they said, " the victor's crown ; 
Beware of the backward glance." 

" Run swift, run true, the crown is thine ! " 
Unhindered through the crescent hours 

He ran a fair and level road 
That went between the flowers. 

But when he left the valley path 

And up the hill began to climb, 
He heard the sound of distant feet 

That with his own kept time. 

He closed his ears, he steeled his heart, 
Yet still that sound came down the wind ; 

He turned, and saw a dreadful form 
That followed far behind. 

Then forward on his way he sprang, 

Scaling the hill with shortening breath; 

But ever on his ears there rang 
The pattering feet of Death. 

At noon upon a lonely height 

He stood, and saw the road run down 
214 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

A shining ribbon of desire 

Straight to the promised crown. 

" Lord of my life am I ! " he cried, 

" The crown is mine." But as the hope 

Flamed in his breast, he looked behind: ' 
Death's feet were on the slope. 

Then down the steep and sudden path 
Swift to the goal he took his flight. 

Far down the hill, he looked again — 
Death stood upon the height. 

On, on he sped, until the crown 
Against the glowing sunset shone: 

Yet ever at the backward glance 
The following form drew on. 

Fast through the gathering dusk he flew : 

He leapt, the guerdon to embrace. 
But as he leapt, he looked behind — 

Death looked him in the face. 

Evelyn Under hill 



134 



Gallows 

THERE was a weasel lived in the sun 
With all his family, 
Till a keeper shot him with his gun 
And hung him up on a tree. 
Where he swings in the wind and rain 

215 



THE BOOK OF 

In the sun and in the snow, 
Without pleasure, without pain 
On the dead oak tree bough. 

There was a crow who was no sleeper, 

But a thief and a murderer 

Till a very late hour; and this keeper 

Made him one of the things that were, 

To hang and flap in rain and wind. 

In the sun and in the snow. 

There are no more sins to be sinned 

On the dead oak tree bough. 

There was a magpie, too. 

Had a long tongue and a long tail; 

He could both talk and do — 

But what did that avail? 

He, too. flaps in the wind and rain 

Alongside weasel and crow. 

Without pleasure, without pain. 

On the dead oak tree bough. 

And many other beasts 

And birds, skin, bone and feather, 

Have been taken from their feasts 

And hung up there together. 

To swing and have endless leisure 

In the sun and in the snow, 

Without pain, without pleasure. 

On the dead oak tree bough. 

Edward Thomas 



216 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



7 ?5 Plaint of Friendship by Death Broken 

(R. P., Loos, 1915) 

GOD, if Thou livest, Thine eye on me bend, 
And stay my grief and bring my pain to end: 
Pain for my lost, the deepest, rarest friend 
Man ever had, whence groweth this despair. 

I had a friend ; but, O ! he is now dead ; 
I had a vision : for which he has bled : 
I had happiness : but it is fled. 

God help me now, for I must needs despair. 

His eyes were dark and sad, yet never sad ; 
In them moved sombre figures sable-clad ; 
They were the deepest eyes man ever had. 

They were my solemn joy — nozv my despair. 

In my perpetual night they on me look, 
Reading me slowly; and I cannot brook 
Their silent beauty, for nor crack nor nook 
Can cover me but they shall find me there. 

His face was straight, his mouth was wide yet trim; 
His hair was tangled black, and through its dim 
Softness his perplexed hand would writhe and swim — 
Hands that were small on arms strong-knit yet spare. 

He stood no taller than our common span," 
Swam but nor farther leaped nor faster ran ; 

217 



THE BOOK OF 

I know him spirit now, who seemed a man. 
God help me now, for I must needs despair. 

His voice was low and clear, yet it could rise 
And beat in indignation at the skies; 
Then no man dared to meet his fire-filled eyes, 
And even I, his own friend, did not dare. 

With humorous wistfulness he spoke to us. 
Yet there was something more mysterious, 
Beyond his words or silence, glorious : 

I know not what, but we could feel it there. 

I mind now how we sat one winter night 
While past his open window raced the bright 
Snow-torrent golden in the hot firelight . . . 
I see him smiling at the streamered air. 

I watched him to the open window go. 

And lean, long smiling, whispering to the snow. 

Play with his hands amid the fiery flow 

And when he turned it flamed amid his hair. 

Without arose a sudden bell's huge clang 
Until a thousand bells in answer rang 
And midnight Oxford hummed and reeled and sang 
Under the whitening fury of the air. 

His figure standing in the fiery room . . . 
Behind him the snow seething through the gloom . . 
The great bells shaking, thundering out their doom . . 
Soft Fiery Snow and Night his being were. 
218 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Yet he could be simply glad and take his choice, 
Walking spring woods, mimicking each bird voice ; 
When he was glad we learned how to rejoice: 
If the birds sing, 'tis to my spite they dare. 

All women loved him, yet his mother won 
,His tenderness alone, for Moon and Sun 
And rain were for him sister, brother, loved one, 
And in their life he took an equal share. 

Strength he had, too; strength of unrusted will 
Buttressed his natural charity, and ill 
Fared it with him who sought his good to kill: 
He was its Prince and Champion anywhere. 

Yet he had weakness, for he burned too fast; 
And his unrecked-of body at the last 
He in impatience on the bayonets cast, 

Body whose spirit had outsoared them there. 

I had a friend, but, O ! he is now dead. 
Fate would not let me follow where he led. 
In him I had happiness. But he is dead. 
God help me now. for I must needs despair. 

God, if Thou livest, and indeed didst send 
Thine only Son to be to all a Friend, 
Bid His dark, pitying eyes upon me bend, 

God help me now, for I must needs despair. 

Robert Nichols 

In Hospital, Autumn, 19 15. 



219 



THE BOOK OF 



136 An Epitaph 

HERE lies a most beautiful lady, 
Light of step and heart was she; 
I think she was the most beautiful lady 
That ever was in the West Country. 
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; 
However rare — rare it be ; 
And when I crumble, who will remember 
This lady of the West Country? 

Walter de la Mare 



7?7 . TJic Listeners 

4^TS there anybody there?" said the Traveller, 

A Knocking on the moonlit door; 
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses 

Of the forest's ferny floor — 
And a bird flew up out of the turret. 

Above the Traveller's head — 
And he smote upon the door again a second time ; 

" Is there anybody there," he said. 
But no one descended to the Traveller; 

No head from the leaf-fringed sill- 
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, 

Where he stood perplexed and still. 
But only a host of phantom listeners 

That dwelt in the lone house then 
220 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight 

To that voice from the world of men : 
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, 

That goes down to the empty hall. 
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken 

By the lonely Traveller's call. 
And he felt in his heart their strangeness, 

Their stillness answering his cry. 
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 

'Neath the starred and leafy sky; 
P'or he suddenly smote on the door, even 

Louder, and lifted his head: — 
" Tell them I came," and no one answered, 

*' That I kept my word," he said. 
Never the least stir made the listeners, 

Though every word he spake 
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house 

From the one man left awake: 
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup. 

And the sound of iron on stone, 
And how the silence surged softly backward, 

When the plunging hoofs were gone. 

Walter de la Mare 



ij8 The Whisperers 

AS beneath the moon I walked, 
Dog-at-heel my shadow stalked. 
Keeping ghostly company : 
And as we went gallantly 
Down the fell-road, dusty-white, 

221 



THE BOOK OF 

Round us in the windy night 
Bracken, rushes, bent and heather 
Whispered ceaselessly together : 
" Would he ever journey more. 
Ever stride so carelessly, 
If he knew what lies before, 
And could see what we can see ? " 

As I listened, cold with dread. 
Every hair upon my head 
Strained to hear them talk of me, 
Whispering, whispering ceaselessly 
" Folly's fool the man must be, 
Surely, since, though where he goes 
He knows not, his shadow knows : 
And his secret shadow never 
Utters warning words, or ever 
Seeks to save him from his fate. 
Reckless, blindfold, and unknown, 
Till death tells him all, too late, 
And his shadow walks alone." 

Wilfrid JVilson Gibson 



i^p The House of the Soul: Lay 

HAVE forgotten my name and the name of my 



I 



I know alone I have lost myself, and have wandered far 

astray 
From the land where the magical fir-trees grow, farther 

than far Cathay, 

222 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Farther than fair Atlantis or the hills of Tir-fa-tonn, 

Or the isles of Bran and Mailduin, or the isle of 
Avalon ; 

From the city built on the rivers, where the willow- 
branches sway 

To a quiet tune all nio^ht to the moon, and dream in 
the sun all day. 

Where the gardens drink at the river's brink and the 
poppies dip to the water wan, 

And the roses fall from the hot red wall like showers 
of light on the water gray. 

Now and again by night, when the sun's last ray 
Has crawled under the sky-line, and I hear the waves' 

array 
March clip-clap after me, driving me up the bay 
That is ringed with cliffs and foam-girt, and the bats 

wheel out anon. 
Sometimes I half remember . . . and again the word 

is gone ; 
And I know that I am lonely, and the night and the 

sea and the spray, 
Unrestingly, unhastingly, march on with no delay, 
And the sheer height of the cliffs' white stands like the 

base of the great white throne, 
And I seem to be left with God, bereft of any wisdom 

to plead or pray. 

Some one has leased me a house that is huge and dark 

and old 
And filled with other men's dust; 

221 



THE BOOK OF 

I do not remember bargaining, but I pay the price in 

gold, 
Year after year ... a heavy price . . . and pay it 

because I must. 
Its rafters are full of mould 
And its bars, of rust; 

The slates fly from the roof at every gust 
Of the wind over the wold. 



I should like to search my house, if only I were bold, 

And scrape the mildew-crust 

From cobweb-curtained corners that are quaintly 

shaped and cold 
And heaped with curious hangings; yet I have but 

little lust 
To find what may not be told 
Or ever discussed 

Hid in a closet, maybe, or carefully thrust 
Into a curtain's fold. 



I am afraid of my house, and I wish I knew 

Who 

Those other tenants were 

That my landlord leased it to; 

I know that they have been there, 

For sometimes I find a shoe 

Or a ribbon for the hair . . . 

There's a grandfather clock on the stair, 

And an odd little bust on a bracket, for which I don't 

very much care. 

224 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

■ " They have left long since ; what matter to you? " . . . 

True. 

But I wish my house was bare 

And perfectly clean and new, 

For the hollowed seat of a chair 

Or a rod wrenched askew 
'Gives me the creeps, and I dare 

Hardly breathe in an air 

So thick with the dust of those who once were here, 
and who now are . . . where ? 

One day the storm was loud, the clouds clung thick and 

red 
Close to the windows, the sky glowed like a copper 

pan, 
The thunder muttered and cracked, the lightning leapt 

from its bed 
Like a beast, the rain ripped down like a curtain of 

iron thread; 
And every nook of the house was dim and strange 

and dread. 
And odd things shuffled and squeaked in the corners, 

and queer feet ran 
Hither and thither . . . the light was split, furled and 

unfurled like a fan . . . 
That was a day of God's ban. 

And it suddenly came to my mind that the house was 

inhabited 
By people that hid themselves, and I swore to seek and 

scan 

225 



THE BOOK OF 

And find those flittering feet, and the voices, and what 

they said; 
But the lightning flashed and shook me, and dizzied 

all my head, 
And I searched each room and closet, and I sped and 

sped and sped 
Through turret and tower and corridor, till trembling 

I began 
To open the dungeon doors, and lo I in the deepest, 

an old. old man 
That sat, and sang and span. 

And, do you know, 1 could not find him again ! 

Not once ! Though I sometimes fancied I heard a 

strain 
With a sort of humming refrain ; 
And I'd tip-toe down the staircase, close to the wall 
To deaden my footfall; 
And the singing would rise and wane. 
And the flame of my secret candle shrink, and shoot 

up smoky and tall. 

So, very quietly creeping, I'd suddenly gain 

A little, low, iron-bound door, and " Not in vain 

This time," I would whisper, " my pain ! " 

Then I'd fling the door back quick with a cheery 

call . . . 
Silence, nothing at all ! 
Now is it not wholly plain 
That here was something of wizardry, mystical, 

magical ? 

226 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



I hate the clock ; 
It first says Tick, 
It then says Tock; 
I hear days flick 
I see years flock, 
The whole world rock 
Had I the trick 
I'd like to lock 
Time with a block 
To make it stick. 



Hie, haec and hoc, 
Hoc, haec and hie, 
Each, at each knock 
Drops like a brick 
Sticks like a stock 
Just at the shock 
Caught in the nick; 
Therefore the mock 
Of that red cock 
Turned Peter sick. 



My house upon the landward side 
Looks out toward the town; 
Pleasant it is all day to bide 
High in the thin air rarefied, 
And gaze delighted down 
On busy folk that drive and ride 
And run and crawl and hop and stride 
Like beetles black and brown. 

227 



THE BOOK OF 

Stiff soldiers stalk, kings pace in pride, 
And statesmen stoop and frown. 
The women strut and mince and glide. 
Priests bustle round at Eastertide . . . 
All but their boots their broad hats hide, 
The wind blows out their gown, , . . 
Tramps slouch and spit, boys jump and slide, 
They look all head. How I deride 
King, lady, priest and clown ! 

My house is haunted and hell-enchanted by a conjuror 

vaunted . . . hear them tripping. 
Chattering, scattering, imps undaunted, here they come 

battering, pattering, skipping. 
Dancing and prancing, gloating and glancing, bawling, 

brawling, leering and lipping, 
Snarling and nipping 
Clinging and gripping 
Winding and whirling, twisting and twirling, sliding 

and sprawling askew and slipping . . . 
And they revel, vitriolic. 
Diabolic, 

Like a devil with the colic . . , 
Topping ! ripping ! 

O the smashing and O the crashing, O the hashing 

and slashing and snipping 
My goods! ... If I could give you a thrashing, send 

you home with a good sound whipping, 
Bestial brood of a brutal mood, when the devil and I 

lay kissing and clipping . . . 
Now curtseying, dipping, 

228 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Sweating and dripping, 

Heel-and-toeing, to-and-froing, winking, blinking, bib- 
bing, and sipping . . . 
How you frolic alcoholic. 
How you rolick. 
Me, a wretched melancholic, 
Sh-aming, stripping ! 

This was the song that, like a distant bell 

Exceeding light and thin. 

Came at the dawning after nights of hell 

From far away within ; 

Maybe from that unsearchable dark cell 

It did begin 

Where that old man, whose name I cannot tell, 

Doth sit and spin. 

" Empty the winds that can the clouds dispel, 

And silence after din. 

Water has virtue heats of wine to quell. 

Fatigue gives pause to sin. 

And rest seemed good to Adam when he fell, 

As to his kin ; 

O well it is for me, O well, O well 

This way to win." 

Yesterday, looking through my window-bars, 
The whole sad sea was changed resplendently 
By one great ship that sailed with raking spars 
Into the sunshine ; and her masts were three. 
Red, splendid banners ia the wind flew free, 
Her blown white sails were thick with tempest-scars, 

229 



THE BOOK OF 

Twelve blazoned shields along her sides had she, 
And round about her prow, the name of the Trinity. 

By night she lit her lanterns from the stars 

And on her decks held mighty jubilee 

With wine poured out from strange Assyrian jars 

And wheaten bread for all her company. 

" O sirs," I cried, " whither with such .good glee . 

Sail ye for merchandise or mighty wars? " 

The Captain said : " Come down, take ship with 

me "... 
Then with this song we weighed and sailed across the 

sea. 

" We that speed on the shifting floor 

Where the green waters vary , 

With many a song and stroke of oar, 

Sail for the chase of the silver boar 

That's horned and hoofed and hairy ; 

His eyes are bright, his bristles hoar, 

And hung with golden bells galore ; 

O many a time he flees and flies across the uplands airy, 

And fierce he is, and fleet he is, and light and wight 

and wary. 
And bravely famed in faery lore 
By many a hunter sought of yore. 

" The dark, salt sea is bitter and frore, 
The wind of comfort chary. 
But though the drenching sleet downpour 
And Manawyddan's green steed roar. 
We are not solitary, 
230 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

For Rhiannon's sweet song-birds soar 

About our heads for evermore. 

With the first stroke for Jesus King, the second stroke 

for Mary, 
The third stroke for the Trinity, the fourth for the 

land of faery, 
By -one, by two, by three, by four, 
We reach the wonderful, weirded shore." 

I am sailing to seek my name and the name of my 

nation . . . nay 
For I know the land that bore me, where the marvellous 

sea beasts play, 
Where are silver bells on the blackthorn boughs, and 

golden bells on the may, 
Where the magical Boar abideth, and the birds of 

Rhiannon, 
And Adam and Eve and Enoch, and Arthur and Prester 

John. 
I have learnt the name of my city, and learnt to ask 

my way. 
And the whole ship's crew are my fellows too, and a 

merry crew be they; 
All day we sail with a favouring gale or gird ourselves 

as the storm draws on. 
And strive and cope with rudder and rope, and sing 

aloud in the loud affray. 

And other things I have learnt, and the first is still to 

say 
To myself, " O unlearned fool ! " and also, " Fool, be 

gay ! " 

231 



THE BOOK OF 

O well for the glorious chase of God, and well for the 

hot assay ! 
Well for the noise of water, for the hills where the 

sun has shone, 
For the trees on the far horizon and the chart we may 

not con ! 
Well for the terrible wer-wolf, and the caves where 

the witch-wife lay 
Till we touched her brows with the rowan boughs and 

left her harmless clay ! 
Well for the land where the fir-trees stand and all we 

witless wanderers wonne ! 
God bless the fools and the wise in schools, et gloria 

tibe, Domine ! 

Dorothy L. Saycrs 



140 Divina Commedia 

"In la sua volontade e nostra pace." — Dante. 

THESE things have passed; no more through twi- 
light hours, 
In that dark Eden of the coloured May, 
On the brown river's bank among the flowers, 
Countess Mathilda takes her painted way. 

And little red anemones, and white 
Narcissus seem to dream in vain. 
Of the blue sky and the sun's gentle light 
And the lost streams of the far Tuscan plain. 
232 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Now long forgotten is that wood serene 
Where Lethe's moonless waters onward glide, 
Bending the ragged blades of grass that lean 
Forth from the green bank underneath the tide. 

Noble Piccarda's pearly brows divine 
Hglding the secret of the world-old rune, 
Like a fair jewel in a carven shrine 
Trouble no more the white ways of the moon. 

Long mute is Cavalcanti's broken prayer; 
The smile of Beatrice, to earth denied, 
Shines now no more on Saturn's golden stair; 
Through no sad town shall Virgil be our guide. 

Along the dark ravine, in single file, 
Monks of Bologna now no longer tread 
The weary mazes of the dismal aisle. 
Beneath the torment of the cowls of lead. 

No flaming tomb can smother down the chords 
Of the new music delicately harsh. 
Beyond the glint of crowns, the clash of swords. 
And the lost horror of the blood stained marsh. 

For we, men say, have lost our heaven and go 
Along dim valleys shadowed everywhere. 
Far from the hills where, glittering, the white snow 
Yet stabs with cruel knives the sunny air. 

As Dante's fierce God, throned in love and light 
Yet pierced the- hearts of gentle folk and kind. 

233 



THE BOOK OF 

And drove out gracious \'irgil from his sight 
And turned to bitterness the sunny wind. 

We sigh where Dante sang, our hungry eyes 
Grown weary of the angels' flaming wings, 
Have made a rainbow heaven of tears and sighs 
And the sea's voice, and pale and sorrowful things. 

We sigh where Dante sang — thus have we found 
His poor lost people on that open road, 
That leads through marsh and fire and broken ground 
Unto the ultimate divine abode. 

Piccarda triumphs in that dream of hers 
That bitter grief and outrage had not slain, 
The secret that the world's soul shakes and stirs, 
That Dante sought through conquered stars in vain. 

And Beatrice, — vanished is the shining sphere 
And saints' high throne above the world apart, 
Yet with us dwells the dream divine and dear 
That folds in beauty every living heart. 

The heaven time brings us shall not be too strait 

For pale Francesca ; only broken bars 

Lie prone where once was hid, by the sad gate, 

" The love that moved the sun and the other stars." 

A love grown wide enough for Plato's dream 
And Homer's story ; not too cramped to hold 
Those pilgrim souls by Acheron's sad stream, 
For ever shut out of the barred fold. 
234 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Death without glory, heaven without wings 
Or angels, bright hopes overthrown, 
We sigh where Dante sang, our wanderings 
Have brought us to the gate of life unknown. 

No heaven is ours of lights and whirling flame — 
For dying warriors a starlit goal — 
But a lost country called by a new name, 
Deep buried in dim valleys of the soul. 

A gentle land where the white singing waves 
Move softly, under silver twilight skies, 
And life with her fierce wars and dreadful graves 
Seems but a little wind that falling sighs. 

No painful voice makes pitiful that wind, 
All bitter dreams sleep in the quiet vale 
Where, out of clashing darkness fierce and blind, 
A new dawn glimmers gently, olive-pale. 

The poet's laurel and the martyr's palm, 

Wither, the old enchantments fade and cease ; 

Yet still the vision of the ancient calm 

Folds, round this weary world, wide wings of peace. 

And all men passing down beneath the boughs 
Of the dim forest to the magic sea 
Mysterious have felt against their brows 
The buffet of the ancient mystery. 

A drift of scattered spray, a fallen leaf, 
Bear witness to that strange and unseen wind 

235 



THE BOOK OF 

That drives the high tide over shoal and reef 
And lonely heaches of moon-haunted mind. 

The light that passes, with a sudden thrill, 

The moonlight's glamour and the twilight's gleam — 

Waking beyond our world of good and ill 

The sleeping purpose underneath the dream. 

The ray of cold reality austere, 
Shining beyond the gates of joy or dole. 
That to the eyes of sorrow shall make clear 
The hidden dweller in the darkened soul. 

For whose sake Dante by the convent door, 
Sure of his golden heaven at close of day, 
When the monk asked what he was seeking for. 
Answered but " Peace " and went upon his way. 

Shrinking from dreadful creeds of storm and stress 
And dreams of passionate wrath, bitter and blind, 
To seek in his own soul for gentleness 
And find the Divine in a comrade's mind. 

As one who knew the inner unseen tide 
Of beauty beating up against the walls 
At evening, breaking down their coloured pride 
When all things are as one, and twilight falls. 

This was his grief, shut behind iron bars, 
Roaming through darkened rooms in sunless towers — 
His soul yet caught a glamour from the stars 
And knew the dauntless will of the wild flowers. 
236 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The captive soul of gentleness in him 
Looked out through narrowed windows, passion- 
blurred ; 
Yet through the darkness of his prison dim 
The far faint voices of the rain were heard. 

With them he trysted outside heaven's gate 

Who mould the gracious word and carve the stone, 

To thrust aside one moment love and hate 

And gaze into the eyes of tFie Unknown. 

For he was one of those sad souls who wrought 
Life into glory, marble into form. 
And carved across the brows of human thought 
The Eternal Beauty's pale and frozen storm. 

Now that the sunshine has quenched all his fire 
And time has swept his narrow gates apart, 
We lean across the sundering ages dire 
To greet the dreamer of the pitiless heart. 

Knowing the Infinite Quiet, pale and vast, 
Floats round his dreams, as the dark tide floats round 
The loud green waves that rise and thunder past 
And sink to rest in silent seas profound. 

Eva Gore-Booth 



237 



THE BOOK OF 



141 Niccolo Machiavelli 

FROM thy serene abode thou lookest down 
With pitying eye upon a rabble rout 
Who strive and plot and fight and turn about. 
Endeavoring to seize some phantom crown, — 
Whether of kingdom or of some small town, 
Or village — or one single home — their own : 
They stumble, and with hurried steps awry 
Blindly they miss their opportunity; 
Whilst, all the time, thy Golden Book is there, 
Ripe with earth's wisdom; but they only stare 
Or pass along with stupid scoff and curse. 
Using thy name for '* scoundrelly " or worse. 

Of all those who have striven to endow 

The world with garnered knowledge, only thou 

Hast for so long endured of thorns the crown ; 

Beneath the feet of swine thy name is thrown ; 

And in the streets thy priceless wit doth lie ; 

So that, alone, the stooping passer-by 

Undaunted by an epithet, may find; 

And treasuring like gold seven times refined, 

Open the casket with exultant air 

To see the Pearl of Wisdom lying there. 

Bernard Gilbert 



238 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



142 Biography 

WHEN I am buried, all my thoughts and acts 
Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, 
And long before this wandering flesh is rotten 
The dates which made me will be all forgotten ; 
And none will know the gleam there used to be 
About the feast days freshly kept by me, 
But men will call the golden hour of bliss 
" About this time," or '' shortly after this." 

Men do not heed the rungs by which men climb 
Those glittering steps, those milestones upon Time. 
Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth, 
Those moments of the soul in years of earth ; 
They mark the height achieved, the main result, 
The power of freedom in the perished cult, 
The power of boredom in the dead man's deeds, 
Not the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds. 

By many waters and on many ways 

I have known golden instants and bright days; 

The day on which, beneath an arching sail, 

I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail; 

The summer day on which in heart's delight 

I saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white. 

The glittering day when all the waves wore flags 

And the ship wanderer came with sails in rags; 

That curlew-calling time in Irish dusk 

When life became more splendid than its husk, 

239 



THE BOOK OF 

When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains 
Shone with a doorway opening beyond brains; 
The dawn when, with a 1')race-block's creaking cry, 
Out of the mist a Httle 1)arque slipped by, 
Spilling the mist with chang:ing gleams of red, 
Then gone, with one raised hand and one turned head ; 
The howling evening when the spindrift's mists 
Broke to display the four Evangelists, 
Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by breakers, 
Wind-beaten bones of long since buried acres ; 
The night alone near water when I heard 
All the sea's spirit spoken by a bird; 
The English dusk when I beheld once more 
(With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied shore. 
The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly trod 
(In happier seasons) and gave thanks to God. 
All had their beauty, their bright moments' gift. 
Their something caught from Time, the ever-swift. 

All of those gleams were golden ; but life's hands 

Have given more constant gifts in changing lands, 

And when I count those gifts, I think them such 

As no man's bounty could have bettered much : 

The gift of country life, near hills and woods 

Where happy waters sing in solitudes. 

The gift of being near ships, of seeing each day 

A city of ships with great ships under weigh, 

The great street paved with water, filled with shipping. 

And all the world's flags flying and seagulls dipping. 

Yet when I am dust my penman may not know 
Those water-trampling ships which made me glow, 
240 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

But think my wonder mad and fail to find 
Their glory, even dimly, from my mind, 
And yet they made me : — not alone the ships 
But men hard-palmed from tallying-on to whips, 
The two close friends of nearly twenty years, 
Sea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea-peers, 
.Whose feet with mine wore many a bolt-head bright 
Treading the decks beneath the riding light. 
Yet death will make that warmth of friendship cold 
And who'll know what one said and what one told 
Our hearts' communion and the broken spells 
When the loud call blew at the strike of bells? 
No one, I know, yet let me be believed 
A soul entirely known is life achieved. 



Years blank with hardship never speak a word 
Live in the soul to make the being stirred. 
Towns can be prisons where the spirit dulls 
Away from mates and ocean-wandering hulls, 
Away from all bright water and great hills 
And sheep-walks where the curlews cry their fills, 
Away in towns, where eyes have nought to see 
But dead museums and miles of misery 
And floating life unrooted from man's need 
And miles of fish-hooks baited to catch greed 
And life made wretched out of human ken 
And miles of shopping women served by men. 
So, if the penman sums my London days 
Let him but say that there were holy ways, 
Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick mansions old 
With stinking doors where women stood to scold 

241 



THE BOOK OF 

And drunken waits at Christmas with their horn 
Droning the news, in snow, that Christ was born 
And windy gas lamps and the wet roads shining 
And that old carol of the midnight whining. 
And that old room (above the noisy slum) 
Where there was wine and fire and talk .with some 
Under strange pictures of the wakened soul 
To whom this earth was but a burnt-out coal. 



O Time, bring back those midnights and those friends, 
Those glittering moments that a spirit lends 
That all may be imagined from the flash 
The cloud-hid god-game through the lightning gash 
Those hours of stricken sparks from which men took 
Light to send out to men in song or book, 
Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells strike two 
Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew. 
Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's best, 
The thought beyond great poets not expressed. 
The glory of mood where human frailty failed, 
The forts of human light not yet assailed. 
Till the dim room had mind and seemed to brood 
Rinding our wills to mental brotherhood. 
Till we became a college, and each night 
Was discipline and manhood and delight,* 
Till our farewells and winding down the stairs 
At each grey dawn had meaning that Time spares. 
That we, so linked, should roam the whole world round 
Teaching the ways our brooding minds had found 
Making that room our Chapter, our one mind 
\\'here all that this world soiled should be refined. 
242 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Often at night I tread those streets again 

And see the alley glimmering in the rain, 

Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps 

A house with shadows of plane-l)oughs under lamps, 

The secret house where once a beggar stood 

Trembling and blind to show his woe for food. 

And now I miss that friend who used to walk 

Home to my lodgings with me, deep in talk, 

Wearing the last of night out in still streets 

Trodden by us and policemen on their beats 

And cats, but else deserted; now I miss 

That lively mind and guttural laugh of his 

And that strange way he had of making gleam. 

Like something real, the art we used to dream. 

London has been my prison, but my books 

Hills and great waters, labouring men and brooks. 

Ships and deep friendships and remembered days 

Which even now set all my mind ablaze 

As that June day when, in the red bricks' clinks 

I saw the old Roman ruins white with pinks 

And felt the hillside haunted even then 

By not dead memory of the Roman men. 

And felt the hillside thronged by souls unseen 

Who knew the interest in me and were keen 

That man alive should understand man dead 

So many centuries since the blood was shed. 

And quickened with strange hush because this comer 

Sensed a strange soul alive behind the summer. 

That other day on Ercal when the stones 

Were sunbleached white, like long unburied bones, 

While the bees droned and all the air was sweet 

From honey buried underneath my feet, 

243 



THE BOOK OF 

Honey of purple heather and white clover 

Sealed in its gummy bags till summer's oven 

Then other days by water, by bright sea, 

Clear as clean glass and my bright friend with me, 

The cove clean-bottomed where we saw the brown 

Red spotted^ plaice go skimming six feet down 

And saw the long fronds waving, white with shells, 

Waving, unfolding drooping, to the swells; 

That sadder day when we beheld the great 

And terrible beauty of a Lammas spate 

Roaring white-mouthed in all the great cliff's gaps 

Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse. 

While drenching clouds drove by and every sense 

Was water roaring or rushing or in offence, 

And mountain sheep stood huddled and blown gaps 

gleamed 
Where torn white hair of torrents shook and streamed. 
That sadder day when we beheld again 
A spate going down in sunshine after rain, 
When the blue reach of water leaping bright 
Was one long ripple and clatter, fiecked with white. 
And that far day, that never blotted page 
When youth was bright like flowers about old age 
Fair generations bringing thanks for life 
To that old kindly man and trembling wife 
After their sixty years: Time never made 
A better beauty since the Earth was laid 
Than that thanksgiving given to grey hair 
For the great gift of life which brought them there. 

Days of endeavour have been good: the days 
Racing in cutters for the comrade's praise, 
244 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

The day they led my cutter at the turn 

Yet could not keep the lead and dropped astern, 

The moment in the spurt when both boats' oars 

Dipped in each other's wash and throats grew hoarse 

And teeth ground into teeth and both strokes quickened 

Lashing the sea, and gasps came and hearts sickened 

And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking stroke. 

To put our weights on, though our hearts were broke 

And both boats seemed to stick and sea seemed glue. 

The tide a mill race we were struggling through 

And every quick recover gave us squints 

Of theixi still there, and oar tossed water-glints 

And cheering came, our friends, our foemen cheering, 

A long wild, rallying murmur on the hearing — 

" Port Fore ! " and " Starboard Fore ! " " Port Fore ! " 

" Port Fore ! " 
" Up with her. Starboard," and at that each oar 
Lightened, though arms were bursting, and eyes shut 
And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut 
And the curse quickened from the cox, our bows 
Crashed, and drove talking water, we made vows, 
Chastity vows and temperance ; in our pain 
We numbered things we'd never eat again 
If we could only win; then came the yell 
" Starboard," " Port Fore," and then a beaten bell 
Rung as for fire to cheer us. " Now." Oars bent, 
Soul took the looms now body's belt was spent. 
" Damn it, come on now," " On now," " On now," 

" Starboard." 
" Port Fore." " Up with her, Port ; " each cutter har- 
boured 
Ten eye-shut painsick strugglers, " Heave, oh, heave," 

245 



THE BOOK OF 

Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking sheave. 
" Heave," and I saw a back, then two. '' Port Fore." 
" Starboard." " Come on." I saw the midship oar 
And knew we had done them. " Port Fore." " Star- 
board." " Now." 
I saw bright water spurting at their bow 
Their cox' full face an instant. They were done. 
The watchers' cheering almost drowned the gun. 
We had hardly strength to toss our oars ; our cry 
Cheering the losing cutter was a sigh. 
Other bright days of action have seemed great: 
Wild days in a pampero off the Plate ; 
Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the Coves 
Which the young gannet and the corbie loves; 
Surf-swimming between rollers, catching breath 
Between the advancing grave and breaking death, 
Then shooting up into the sunbright smooth 
To watch the advancing roller bare her tooth. 
And days of labour also, loading, hauling; 
Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling; 
The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting. 
And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting. 
Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice. 
And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice; 
Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanch 
With White Leghorns come from the chicken ranch. 
Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill, 
Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill. 
Delights of work most real, delights that change 
The headache life of towns to rapture strange 
Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; health 
That puts new glory upon mental wealth 
246 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

And makes the poor man rich. 

But that ends, too, 
Health with its thoughts of Hfe; and that bright view 
That sunny landscape from life's peak, that glory, 
And all a glad man's comments on life's story 
And thoughts of marvellous towns and living men 
And what pens tell and all beyond the pen 
End, and are summed in words so truly dead 
They raise no image of the heart and head. 
The life, the man alive, the friend we knew, 
The mind ours argued w^th or listened to. 
None; but are dead, and all life's keenness, all, 
Is dead as print before the funeral. 
Even deader after, when the dates are sought. 
And cold minds disagree with what we thought. 
This many pictured world of many passions 
Wears out the nations as a woman fashions, 
And what life is is much to very few. 
Men being so strange, so mad, and what men do 
So good to watch or share; but when men count 
Those hours of life that were a bursting fount. 
Sparkling the dusty heart with living springs, 
There seems a world, beyond our earthly things, 
Gated by golden moments, each bright time 
Opening to show the city white like lime, 
High towered and many peopled. This made sure, 
Work that obscures those moments seems impure, 
Making our not-returning time of breath 
Dull with the ritual and records of death, 
That frost of fact by which our wisdom gives 
Correctly stated death to all that lives. 

247 



THE BOOK OF 

Best trust the happy moments. What they gave 
Makes man less fearful of the certain grave, 
And gives his work compassion and new eyes. 
The days that make us happy make us wise. 

John Mascfield 



143 Nod 

SOFTLY along the road of evening, 
In a twilight dim with rose. 
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew 
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes. 

His drowsy flock streams on before him, 
Their fleeces charged with gold, 

To where the sun's last beam leans low 
On Nod the shepherd's fold. 

The hedge is quick and green with briar, 
From their sand the conies creep; 

And all the birds that fly in heaven 
Flock singing home to sleep. 

His lambs outnumber a noon's roses, 
Yet, when night's shadows fall, 

His blind old sheep-dog. Slumber-soon 
Misses not one of all. 

His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, 

— The waters of no-more-pain, 
248 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars, 
'* Rest, rest, and rest again." 

Walter de la Mare 



144 Sonnet 

SLEEP, get a dream out of your secret chest. 
From that long drawer where the great visions lie 
With folded wings. Sleep, pick me out the best ; 
Then, as we see the moon bound in the sky 
By a great ring of cold on winter nights 
And seeming shut away, my frozen soul 
Shall open to the prick of northern lights, 
And by that guest that flies from pole to pole 
Of human consciousness, but is not heard 
Except when a great stillness lies beneath 
Supernal calm, my spirit shall be stirred, 
Calling on what it once believed was death — 
As to its source — and entering, O Sleep, 
Into eternal peace, no more to weep. 

Fredegond Shove 



14 j ' Kisses in the Rain 

I SAW the midlands 
Revolve through her hair; 
The fields of autumn 

Stretching bare, 
And sheep on the pasture 
Tossed back in a scare. 

249 



THE BOOK OF 

And still as ever 

The world went round, 
My mouth on her pulsing 

Neck was found, 
And my breast to her beating 

Breast was bound. 

But my heart at the centre 

Of all, in a swound 
Was still as a pivot, 

As all the ground 
On its prowling orbit 

Shifted round. 

And still in my nostrils 

The scent of her flesh. 
And still my wet mouth 

Sought her afresh ; 
And still one pulse 

Through all the world did thresh. 

And the world all whirling 

Around in joy 
Like the dance of a dervish 

Did destroy 
My sense — and my reason 

Spun like a toy. 

But firm at the centre 

My heart was found; 
Her own to my perfect 

Heart-beat bound. 



250 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 



Like a magnet's keeper 
Closing the round. 



D. H. Lawrence 



146 We Would See Love 

WE would see Love! Sweet, have we not de- 
sired, 
Sought, hungered thirsted, agonized, aspired, 
Met, clasped, refused? and ever more required 
This answer at the end? We would see Love! 

We would see Love ! Must his companions be 
The chief est sharers of felicity? 
Some follower hold our life in custody 
Some appetite or law ? We would see Love ! 

We would see Love ! Touch and the things of sense, 
Our spirits' pupilage, our minds' suspense 
Of expectation, — what conjures him thence 
Who is so far within? We would see Love ! 
We would see Love ! His face if none draw nigh 
Except their whole lives shatter up thereby, 
Agree, sweet ! Let us look on God and die. 
Feel him, one shock, and end ! We would see Love ! 

Charles Williams 



251 



THE BOOK OF 

r^7 Amourette 

The Woman and the Philosopher 

She: What shall I do, most pleasing man? 
I will delight you if I can. 
Shall I be silent? Shall I speak? 
Since I love quick I'll show that I am weak : 
I'll say the wisest strangest thing I know 
That you may smile at vanity, and love me so. 

He: How can her wisdom flourish and endure 
When her philosophy is but a lure, 
And to the arsenal of charm is brought 
The ammunition of her thought? 
I count her breathing as T sit; 
I love her mouth, but disregard her wit. 

She: More than love, and more than other pleasure 
I desire thrilling combat of the wit. 
As far as I can measure 
This man is rare, and therefore fit 
To be a combatant, let me say one thing new 
That I may gage him so, to prove my judgment 
true. 

(Here follows an argument.) 

She: Sir, it is just I own 
That I am overthrown, 
And I take strange delight 
That I am beaten so to-night. 
252 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

He: Madam, you are a sensualist, 

And, being such, you shall be kissed. 

She: What husbandry is this? 

What thrift, that we should kiss 

On the first night we meet? 

What is your need to eat the seed, 

When growth might be so sweet ? 

From this first pleasure that you sow in me 

It is my power to raise a gracious tree. 

And maybe, I will give you a kind grove 

Where you may sit through sunny days, and love. 

He: This answer, which is rare, 
Is luring as your hair. 
I go from you this night in pain, 
But Madam, I will come again. 

She: Dreams, dreams, stay with me till I sleep, 
Then let oblivion steep 
My senses in forgetfulness. 
That when I wake, I may forget my loneliness. 

Anna Wick ham 



148 The Faithful Amorist 

AM I not the lover of Beauty 
To follow her where I know she is hid 
By the aroma of her pleasure? 
Yesterday -I had pleasure of Helen, 

253 



THE BOOK OF 

Of white, of yellow hair, 
But to-day a negress is my delight, 
And Beauty is black. 

There are some that are as small tradesmen, 
To sell beauty in a shop, 

Noting what has been desired, and acclaiming 
eternally good. 



So poets fill verses 

For ever with the owl, the oak, and the nightingale. 
I say the crow is a better bird than the nightingale. 
Since to-day Beauty is black. 

The lark sings flat 

Of wearisome trees and spiritless fields. 
But there is great music in the hyaena. 
For there is pleasure in deserts. 

Anna Wickham 



14P The Mummer 

STRICT I walk my ordered way 
Through the strait and duteous day 
The hours are nuns that summon me 
To offices of huswifry. 
Cups and cupboards, flagons, food 
Are things of my solicitude; 
No elfin folly haply strays 
Down my precise and well-swept ways. 
254 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

When that compassionate lady Night 
Shuts out a prison from my sight, 
With other thrift I turn a key 
Of the old chest of Memory. 
And in my spacious dreams unfold 
A flimsy stuff of green and gold. 
And walk and wander in the dress 
Of old delights, and tenderness. 

Anna IVickham 



ISO The World's Miser 



A 



MISER with an eager face 
Sees that each roseleaf is in place. 



He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars 
The piercing beauty of the stars. 

The colours of the dying day 

He hoards as treasures — well He may ! 

And saves with care (lest they be lost) 
The dainty diagrams of frost. 

He counts the hairs of every head, 
And grieves to see a sparrow dead. 



255 



THE BOOK OF 



II 



Among the yellow primroses 
He holds His summer palaces, 

And sets the grass about them all 

To guard them as His spearmen small. 

He fixes on each wayside stone 
A mark to shew it as His Own, 

And knows when raindrops fall through air 
Whether each single one be there, 

That gathered into ponds and brooks 
They may become His picture-books. 

To shew in every spot and place 
The living glory of His face. 

Theodore Maynard 



i^i ■ Apocalypse 

" And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away." — Apoc. 
xxi, I. 

SHALL summer woods where we have laughed our 
fill: 
Shall all your grass so good to walk upon; 
Each field which we have loved, each little hill 
Be burnt like paper — as hath said Saint John ? 
256 



MODERN BRITISH VERSE 

Then not alone they die ! For God hath told 
How all His plains of mingled fire and glass, 

His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold, 
His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass, 

That He may make us nobler things than these. 
And in her royal robes of blazing red 

Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries 
And might and mirth shall she be diamonded ! 

And what new secrets shall our God disclose; 

•Or set what sums of burnished brass to flare; 
Or what empurpled blooms to oust the rose; 
Or what strange grass to glow like angels' hair ! 

What pinnacles of silver tracery, 

What dizzy rampired towers shall God devise 
Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony 

To make Heaven pleasant to His children's eyes ! 

And in what cataclysms of flame and foam 
Shall the first Heaven sink — as red as sin — 

When God hath cast aside His ancient home 
As far too mean to house His children in ! 

Theodore Maynard 



257 



INDEX OF POEMS 

After Two Years Richard Aldington .... 6i 

An Epitaph JValter de la Mare .... 220 

An Old Woman of the Roads . . . Padraic Coluin 69 

And You, Helen Edward Thomas 46 

Any Lover, Any Lass Richard Middleton .... 59 

Arabia Walter de la Marc .... 104 

Ascetics, The George Rostrcvor 38 

Assault, The Robert Nichols 159 

Assault Heroic, The Robert Grazes 157 

August, 1 9 14 John Masefi'eld 135 

Amourette Anna Wickham 252 

Apocalypse Theodore Maynard .... 256 

Affinity, The 4nna Wickham 82 

Babylon Ralph Hodgson 105 

Babylon '. . . Fiola Taylor 107 

Back Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . .171 

Backward Glance, The Evelyn Underhill 214 

Balkis Lascelles Abercrombie ... 87 

Ballad of Camden Town, The . . . James Elroy Flecker .... 83 

Ballad of Doom, A Elizebeth Rend all 90 

Before Action . Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 145 

Behind the Closed Eye Francis Ledwidge 33 

Billy's Yarn Cicely Fox Smith 118 

" Bid Adieu to Girlish Days '" . . James Joyce 60 

Biography John Mascficld 239 

Bird at Dawn, The Harold Monro 28 

Birds Flit Unafraid, The .... Herbert Trench 153 

Birthright John Drinkwatcr 211 

Bodily Beauty George Rostrevor 58 

Bough of Nonsense, The Robert Graves 108 

Brother Fidelis Gwen Upcott 197 

Bull, The Ralph Hodgson 51 

By the Wood Robert Nichols 165 

Cargoes John Masefield 125 

Carol of the Poor Children, The . Richard Middleton .... 15 



INDEX OF POEMS 

Check James Stephens 113 

Children's Song Ford Madox Hueffer ... 14 

Clavichords Osbert Sitwell 5 

C. L. M John Masefield 65 

Conscripts Siegfried Sassoon 143 

Dark Way, The Joseph Mary Plunkett . . . 212 

Dead, The Rupert Brooke 140 

Deep Water Jack Cicely Fox Smith 125 

Discharged Totally Disabled . Irene Rutherford McLeod . 17s 

Discovery John Freeman 3 

Divina Commedia Eva Gore-Booth 232 

Dreamers Siegfried Sassoon . . . .150 

Drover, A Padraic Colnm ...... 129 

Dusk F. S. Flint 150 

Dust * Rupert Brooke "93 

Dying Patriot, The James Elroy Flecker ... 185 

Eager Spring Gordon Bottomley 21 

Eve Ralph Hodgson 85 

Epilogue Lascelles Abercromhie . . 96 

Every Thing Harold Monro 11 

Fables Sacheverell Sitwell . . . .112 

Fear, The Wilfrid M^ilson Gibson . . 147 

Fish, The Rupert Brooke 47 

The Faithful Amorist Anna Wickham 253 

Gallows Edward Thomas 215 

Golden Journey to Samarkand, The James Elroy Flecker . . . loi 

Happy Is England Now John Freeman 134 

Harvest Eva Gore-Booth 211 

Haymaking Edward Thomas 131 

House of the Soul, The: Lay . . Dorothy L. Sayers .... 222 

1914 Rupert Brooke 138 

I am the Gilly of Christ Seosamh MacCathmhaoil 

(Joseph Campbell) ... 194 
I am the ]Mountainy Singer .... Seosamh MacCathmhaoil 

(Joseph Campbell) ... 37 

If I Should Ever by Chance . . . Edward Thomas 43 

If I were to Own Edward Thomas 45 

260 



INDEX OF POEMS 



In Prize " Cicely Fox Smith 



In Flanders Fields 
In the Country . . 
In the Trenches . . 



John McCrae . . . 
William H. Davies 
Richard Aldington 



Into Battle Julian Gr en fell 



Iron Music, The 
It's a Queer Time 



I'ord Madox Hueffer 
Robert Graves . 



Kingfisher, The William H. Davies 

Kiss, The Siegfried Sassoon 

Kisses in the Rain D. H. Lawrence . 



Lancelot and Guinevere Gerald Gould . . . 

Lepanto G. K. Chesterton . 

Listeners, The Walter de la Mare 

Little Waves of Breffny, The . . . Eva Gore-Booth . 
Love Came to Us fa:iics Joyce . . . 



Magic Ji'. J. Turner . . . 

Man ll'illiam H. Davies 

Mandrake's Horrid Scream, The . Bernard Gilbert . . 

Marriage Song I^ascelles Abercromb 

Mole -lllous L. Huxley . 

Myself on the Merry-Go-Round . . Edith Sitwell . . . 

Mystic as Soldier, A Siegfried Sassoon . 

Music Comes John Freeman . . 

Mummer, The Inna Wickham . . 

Man Dreams That He Is the Crea- 
tor, A .- Fredegond Shove . 



Netted Strawberries Gordon Bottomley . 

Niccolo Machiavelli Bernard Gilbert 

Nod . . . : Walter de la Mare 

No Wife Bernard Gilbert 



Old Houses of Flanders, The 
Old Woman Forever Sitting 



Ford Madox Hueffer 
Iris Tree 



Peace Rupert Brooke . 

Philosophy ........... Cicely Fox Smith 

Picnic Rose Macaulay . 

Plaint of Friendship by Death 

Broken . Robert Nichols . 



217 



261 



INDEX OF POEMS 

" Psittachus Eois Iinitatrix Ales 

Ab Indis " — Ovid Sacheverell Sitwell . . . . 1 1 1 

Question, The Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 148 

Quod Semper Lucy Lyttelton 18 

Rainbow, The Leslie Coulson 173 

Reciprocity John Drinkwater 39 

Regnum Caelorum Vim Patitiir . . Evelyn Underhill 195 

Return, The Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 172 

Safety Rupert Brooke 139 

"Ships That Pass" Cicely Fox Smith 119 

Simon the Cyrenean Lucy Lyttelton ...... 209 

Soldier, The Rupert Brooke 141 

So Much Is Altered T. W. Earp 8 

Song for Grocers, A Sherard Vines 109 

Songs from an Evil Wood .... Lord Dunsany 166 

Song of April, A Francis Ledwidgc 22 

Song of Woman's Smiling. A . . . May Doney 62 

Sonnet Fredegond Shove 249 

Sorley's Weatlier Robert Graves 128 

South Country, The Hilaire Belloc 35 

Spires of Oxford. Tlie Winifred M. Letts .... 142 

Spring Hester Sainsbury 23 

Star, The Willoughby Weaving ... 2 

Stone Trees John Freeman 4-2 

Sunrise on Rydal Water John Drinkwater 26 

Symbols John Drinkwater 8 

Terror Richard Aldington .... 154 

To My Wife James C. Welsh 64 

There Are Songs Enough .... Iris Tree 13-2 

To a Greek Marble Richard Aldington .... 95 

To an Officer in Regent Street . . Lucy Hawkins 172 

Time, You Old Gipsy Man .... Ralph Hodgson i 

To a Bull-Dog /. C. Squire i77 

To any Dead Officer Siegfried Sassoon 163 

To Germany Charles Hamilton S or ley . . 173 

To the Poet Before Battle .... Ivor Gurney 147 

Triptych Robert Nichols 200 

Two Carols Evelyn Underhill 199 

Two Children, The William H. Davies .... 18 

262 



INDEX OF POEMS 



Uxbridge Road Evelyn Under hill 126 



Wanderlust Gerald Gould . . . 

What Shall I Give? Edward Thomas . 

When It's Over Max Plowman . . 

Whisperers, The Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 

Seosamh MacCathmhao 

Who Buys Land {Joseph Campbell) ■ 

Wind, The . Elizeheth Kendall . . , 

Wishes for My Son . Thomas MacDonagh 

We Would See Love Charles Williams . 

World's Miser, The Theodore Maynard 



• 34 

44 

180 

221 

7 

31 

16 

251 

255 



Youth and Age 



Osbert Sitwcll 144 



263 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

A man dreams that he is the Crea- 
tor Fredegond Shove ..... lo 

A ship was built in Glasgow, and 

oh, she looked a daisy Cicely Fox Smith 122 

After night's thunder far away 

' had rolled Edward Thomas 131. 

"Ah, little boy! I see .-. . . . William H. Davies .... 18 

Ages long the hills have stood . . George Rostrevor 38 

And you, Helen, what should I give 

you? Edward Thomas 46 

As beneath the moon 1 walked . . Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 221 

Away, for we are ready to a man! James Elroy Flecker . . . loi 

Am I not the lover of Beauty . . Anna Wickham 253 

A miser with an eager face .... Theodore Maynard . . . . 255 

Back from the Somme two f'usil- 
iers Robert Graves io8 

Balkis was in her marble town . . Lascelles Abercrombie ... 87 

Beauty had first my pride .... Willoughby Weaving ... 2 

Beauty walked over the hills and 

made them bright John Freeman 3 

Beyond the East the sunrise, be- 
yond the West the sea Gerald Gould 34 

Bid adieu, adieu, adieu James Joyce 60 

Blow out, you bugles, over the 
rich-Dead! Rupert Brooke 140 

Come down at dawn from wind- 

, less hills John Drinkwater 26 

■Come up, dear chosen morning, 

come . : Lascelles Abercrombie ... 76 

Day breaks on PZngland down the 

Kentish hills • • ■ ^ames Elroy Flecker ... 185 

Dear! of all happy in the hour, 

most blest Rupert Brooke .139 

Down in the mud I lay Robert Graves 157 



265 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Earth like a butterfly Hester Saitisbury 23 

Eve, with her basket, was .... Ralph Hodgson 85 

Fall in, that awkward squad, and 

strike no . more Siegfried Sassoon 143 

Far are the shades of Arabia . . . Walter de la Mare .... 104 
From thy serene abode thou, look- 

est down Bernard Gilbert 238 

Flores apparuerunt in terra nos- 

tre — Evelyn Under hill 199 

God, if Thou livest, Thine eye on 

me bend Robert Nichols 217 



He went, and he was gay to go . . Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 172 

Heaven bless grocers' shops wherein Sherard Vines 109 

Her curving bosom images .... George Rostrevor 58 

Here lies a most beautiful lady . . Walter de la Marc .... 220 

Here where the brown leaves fall . F. S. Flint 150 

How still this quiet cornfield is to- 
night! John Mase field 13S 

How still the day is, and the air 

how bright! Robert Nichols 165 

I am the Gilly of Christ Seosatnh MacCathinhaoil 

(Joseph Campbell) ... 194 

I am a willow-wren Gordon Bottomlcy 29 

I am the mountainy singer .... Seosamh MacCathinhaoil 

(Joseph Campbell) ... 37 

I do not fear to die Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 147 

I do not think that skies and 

meadows are John Drinkivater 39 

I have forgotten my name and the 

name of my nation . . . yes . . Dorothy L. Saycrs .... 222 

I have the freedom of my mouth . May Doney 62 

I lived my days apart Siegfried Sassoon 153 

I love a still conservatory .... W. J. Turner 40 

I sat in heaven like the sun . . . Fredegond Sho-i-e 10 

I saw history in a poet's song . . John Drinkwater 8 

I sit beside the brazier's glow . . Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 145 

I walk the old frequented ways . . Francis Ledzvidgc 33 

I walked with Maisie long years 

back James Elroy Flecker . . • . . 83 

266 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

I watch the white dawn gleam . , Leslie Coulson i73 

I wonder if the old cow died or 

not Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . . 148 

If I should die, think only this of 

me Rupert Brooke 141 

If you could bring her glories 

back! Ralph Hodgson 105 

If I should ever by chance grow 

rich Edward Thomas 43 

If I were to own this countryside Edward Thomas 45 

I'm going softly all my years in 

wisdom if in pain — Viola Taylor 107 

In a cool curving world he lies . . Rupert Brooke 47 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow John McCrae 182 

In the dark womb where I began . John Masefield 65 

I saw the spires of Oxford .... Winifred M. Letts .... 142 

I saw Time running by — . . . . William H. Davies .... 9 
" Is there anybody there? " said 

the Traveller Walter de la Mare .... 220 

It's hard to know if you're alive 

or dead Robert Graves 170 

It was the Rainbow gave thee birth William H. Davies .... 29 

Its pure and dulcet tone Osbert Sitwell 5 

I have to thank God I'm a 

woman — Anna Wickham 82 

I saw the midlands D. H. Lawrence 249 

•' Ladies, pretty ladies Elisebeth Rendall 90 

Last night a sword-light in the sky John Freeman 42 

" Last night in the Baltic Tavern 

Tap Cicely Fox Smith 116 

Like some lean ghost who for a 

little space Lucy Hawkins 172 

Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed . . John Drinkwatcr 211 

Love came to us in time gone by . James Joyce 61 

Music comes John Freeman 4 

Not that we are weary Richard Aldington . . . .148 

Now, Cod be thanked who has 

matched us with His hour . . . Rupert Brooke 138 

Now, my son, is life for you . . . Thomas MacDonagh ... 16 



267 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Now, youth, the hour of thy dread 

passion comes Ivor Giirney 147 

O, to have a little house! Padraic Colum 69 

Oh, it's " ah, fare you well," for 

the deep sea's crying Cicely Fox Smith 125 

Old woman forever sitting .... Iris Tree 70 

On a day in Maytime mild .... Robert Nichols 200 

" 'Oo seen her off? " Cicely Fox Smith 118 

Outside the church the mourning 

children cried Osbert Sitwell 144 

Passing to Chapel thro' the high 

cloister'd way Gwen Upcott 197 

Quinquireme of Nineveh from dis- 
tant Ophir John Masefield 125 

Rougher than death the road I 
choose Joseph Mary Plunkett . . .212 

Shall summer woods where we 

have laughed our fill Theodore Maynard . . . .256 

See an unhappy bull Ralph Hodgson 51 

She is all so slight Richard Aldington 61 

Since man has been articulate . . Harold Monro 11 

Sir Lancelot beside the mere . . . Gerald Gould 89 

Sleep, get a dream out of your 

secret chest Fredegond Shove 249 

So death was cheated of you! 

Here you lie Irene Rutherford McLeod . i75 

So much is altered; we no longer 
write T. W. Earp 8 

Softly along the road of evening . Walter de la Mare .... 248 

Soldiers are citizens of death's 
grey land Siegfried Sassoon 150 

Sometimes wind and sometimes rain Ford Madox Hueffer ... 14 

She: What shall I do, most pleas- 
ing man? Anna Wickham 253 

Strict I walk my ordered way . . Anna Wickham 254 

The beating of the guns grows 

louder Robert Nichols ...... IS9 

"The birds flit unafraid Herbert Trench i53 

268 



W42 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

The censer of the eglantine was 

moved Francis Ledwidge .... 22 

The French guns roll continuously Ford Madox Hiieffer . . . 146 

The giddy sun's kaleidoscope — . . Edith Sitwell 114 

The grand road from the mountain 

goes shining to the sea Eva Gore-Booth 124 

The naked earth is warm with 

spring • Julian Grenfell 156 

The night was creeping on the 

ground James Stefyliens 113 

The old houses of Flanders . . . Ford Madox Hueffcr ... 182 

The parrot's voice snaps out — . . Sacheverell Sitwell .... 11 1 
The Western Road goes streaming 

out to see the cleanly wild . . . Evelyn Underliill 126 

There are songs enough of love, 

of joy, of grief Iris Tree 132 

There are ships that pass in the 

night-time, some poet has told 

us how Cicely Fox Smith 119 

There is no wrath in the stars . . Lord Dunsany ...... 166 

There is not anything more won- 
derful John Freeman 134 

There was a weasel lived in the 

sun Edward Thomas 215 

These hearts were woven of human 

joys and cares Rupert Brooke 140 

These things have passed; no more 

through twilight hours Eva Gore-Booth 232 

They ask me where I've been . . . Wilfrid Wilson Gibson . .171 

They set him on a sunny road . , Evelyn Underhill 214 

This is the tale from first to last . Lucy Lyttelton 209 

To Meath of the pastures .... Padriac Colum 129 

Those of the earth envy us ... . Richard Aldington .... 154 

This life is sweetest; in this wood William H. Davies .... 32 
Though the long seasons seem to 

separate Eva Gore-Booth 211 

Time, you old gipsy man .... Ralph Hodgson i 

Tom! Tom! What you think? . Bernard Gilbert 71 

To these I turn, in these I trust . Siegfried Sassoon ..... 141 

Tunnelled in solid blackness creeps Aldous L. Huxley 49 

We are the poor children, come out 

to see the sights Richard Middleton .... 15 

269 



INDEX OF FIRST LL\ES 

We children every morn would 

- wait IVilliam H. Davies .... 20 

We lay and ate sweet hurt-berries Rose Macau lay 183 

Well, how are things in Heaven? 

I wish you'd say Siegfried Sassoon .... 163 

We shan't see Willy any more, 

Mamie J. C. Squire 177 

What I saw was just one eye . . . Harold Monro 28 

What shall I give my daughter the 

younger Edward Thomas 44 

What shall we do for Love these 

days? Lascelles Abercrombie ... 96 

What wind is this across the roofs 

so softly makes his way .... Lucy Lyttelton 18 

When I am buried, all my thoughts 

and acts John Masefield 239 

When I am living in the Midlands Hilaire Belloc 35 

When the white flame in us is gone Rupert Brooke 93 

Whirl, snow, on the b'ackbird's 

chatter Gordon Bottomley 21 

When our five-angled spears, that 

pierced the world Ei-elyn Undcrhill 195 

When outside the icy rain .... Robert Graves 128 

When sere has touched the leaf 

with age James C. M^'elsh ...... 64 

White founts falling in the Courts 

of the sun G. K. Chesterton 187 

White grave goddess Richard Aldington .... 95 

Who buys land buys many stones Seosamh MacCathmhaoil 

(Joseph Campbell) .... 7 
Who taught the centaur first to 

drink Sacheverell Sitwell .... 112 

Why ain't the Mester back? . . . Bernard Gilbert 66 

Why are her eyes so bright, so 

bright Richard Middlcton .... S9 

Why does the wind so want to be . Elizcbeth Rendall 31 

We would see Love! Sweet, have 

we not desired Charles Williams 251 

You are blind like us. Your hurt 

no man designed Charles Hamilton Sorley . i73 

Young soldier, what will you be . Max Plowman 180 

270 





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